Unless… having been free to proceed with its heavy-water experiments because Britain was too busy girding its loins for the invasion to come and didn’t have the partisan contacts on the continent it did IRL, the Nazis developed the A-bomb, had built up a stockpile and were ready to use them in 1947 or whenever the U.S. came calling.
Couldn’t the southern or eastern ends of Greenland (which aren’t covered by ice) be used as a staging area to attack Canada? Just take Denmark (already done), Britain (on the to-do list), Iceland (shouldn’t be too difficult after Britain) and then Greenland.
Zev Steinhardt
as i see it, Hitler blew his only chances for victory:
-he should have declared war on the USA Immediately, and occupied the island of Iceland. with Iceland as a base, his U-Boats could range to American shores, without having to traverse the bay of Biscay
- WRT Russia, he should have stripped army Groups north and South BAE-and used the troops to reinforce Army Group Center-a “knockout” drive to Moscow (in Sept. 1941) would have provoked an overthrow of stalin, by the Russian officer corps.
-With russia out of hostilities, “mopping up” operations could be conducted at leisure-seizing Egypt, and the Suez canal only needed 3-4 panzer divisions
But you had 150 million Americans and however many Canadians right there, ready to respond to a very difficult invasion by - by that time a very much exhausted nation of perhaps 80 or so million which already had it’s forces strung out all over Europe trying to hold onto it’s conquests.
Navy wise, forget it. They didn’t have the ships, never had the ships, couldn’t build enough ships to do it. Up against a couple of sea faring nations (Britain and the US) with more than enough ships to sink entire fleets of troop carriers.
Heck, even if the Germans had completely conquered Europe, Britain, Russia and the Middle East, it would have taken them another generation, say till the 60’s at least, to be able to build up a naval force big enough to challenge the US for dominance in the North Atlantic. By that time we’re into the big block static and endless warfare described in 1984, if the entire thing hasn’t collapsed upon the death of Hitler due to assassination or old age.
Re: Ralph124c; the Russians had already pulled much of their industrial base back to the Urals. Losing Moscow or any combination of the big western cities would not have cost them much other than symbolically, which I admit is still significant. Even if they had, and had overthrown Stalin, I do not believe that they would ever capitulate to the Germans or sign any sort of armistice.
True that they might have been a litte more hampered by not having the northern resupply route from America (assuming the Germans had conquered Britain), what with all the equipment we gave them that generally went unacknowledged after the war, but once we’d kicked the snot out of the Japanese, the trans-Siberian railroad would be a steady stream of American war materials.
And I’d bet that if Britain had gone down and we’d have beaten the Japanese, our next move would be to relocate all our ships to the North Atlantic in order to retake Britain. No power on Earth could have withstood that fleet!
The Nazis didn’t get along real well with locals when they were actually large and in charge. If the British, Americans, Ottomans et al. couldn’t pacify the Middle East, you’d better believe there’s no chance the heavy-fisted Nazis would have.
If we start going much beyond that, into “well, what if they DID act nice,” then we’re positing a scenario when the Nazis were not Nazis. Heck, we’re already halfway there by supposing they wouldn’t have fought the Soviets, which is, of course, a ludicrous proposition; war between the Nazis and Soviets was inevitable. If the Nazis weren’t Nazis there likely wouldn’t have been a war to start with.
The Germans didn’t lose the war against the Soviets because they only invaded from one direction. The front was plenty big enough, the initial assault quite effective. They lost because they weren’t big enough and had their asses kicked by an enemy that wouldn’t give up and have the space and time to recover and fight back.
There’s no amount of oil or second front that changes the underlying problem facing Germany, which is that they didn’t have enough men and material and didn’t have the means to deny the Allies use of their resources.
What do you mean “immediately”? What’s the point of declaring war on the USA? Hitler didn’t want war with the US, he didn’t even really want war with the UK. Hitler couldn’t do a thing against the US except submarine warfare against US shipping. Declaring war on the US in 1939 doesn’t accomplish anything! Hitler can’t fight against the US, and his only beef against the western allies is that they didn’t give him carte blanche in the east.
And invading Iceland implies that he’s already occupied the UK, which was impossible. Any invasion fleet steaming for Iceland would be blown out of the water by the British navy. Iceland was a useful naval base for the allies because we had overwhelming naval superiority in the Atlantic. Without that overwhelming superiority, island bases are cut off and can’t be resupplied and can be defeated at leisure. Hitler had overwhelming superiority against the western allies on the European continent, but any German scheme that would depend on naval resupply was impossible. It wasn’t even considered and couldn’t be considered unless the UK was occupied and the British navy routed.
And Hitler didn’t make a huge mistake declaring war on the US after Pearl Harbor, since Roosevelt would have declared war on Germany anyway pretty soon. The idea that Roosevelt would have been hamstrung against Germany if only Germany didn’t declare war on the US is ludicrous. We were already in a state of unacknowleged war with Germany, within a few weeks Roosevelt would have went to congress saying that German subs had sunk a US convoy, and this was an act of war, and congress would have instantly declared war on Germany.
Well the whole point of this thread is “What if…” So if we start saying that “What if…” scenarios are pointless, why are we posting? Besides, there were times when the Nazis did favor local groups. In the Muslim areas of the USSR that the Nazis occupied, they allowed the locals to reopen the mosques that the Soviets had shut down. That got them a LOT of local favor. Ther SS recruited Bosnian muslims into its ranks starting in 1943. Also, the germans would not have pacify the middle east. Just make some deals with local princes and sheiks to keep their own facilities secure.
Atacking from the south WOULD have produced better conditions for the Germans. Taking the southern soviet oil supply would, at the very least, have denied it to the Soviets.
What you say here is accurate and relevant – but I still laugh whenever I see someone say it (no offense, as I agree with you!)
It just sounds funny to me to say “declaring war on the greatest military power there has ever been was probably his biggest mistake, other than declaring war on the second greatest military power there has ever been at the same time.”
Heh.
Sailboat
Well put, Sailboat. Heh indeed. 
Except that the man thought that his own Germany was the greatest military power there had ever been and that the USA and Soviet Union were crippled by ideological and societal weaknesses. He was seriously in error, but he certainly did not believe that he was declaring war on two superior enemies.
And at the time he declared war on the US, his forces were stomping the Soviets with no reason to think they would have anything but ultimate victory over the inferior untermenschen. And the reason he declared war on the US was so that the Japanese would reciprocate and attack the Soviets from the east, forcing Stalin to wage a two-front war. But the Imperial Japanese army did not open hostilities with the Soviets, creating another huge What if…? for folks to ponder.
Once Japan had declared war on the United States, it made sense for Hitler to do the same. He realized that if he left Japan to fight alone, the United States would build up its military and defeat Japan. So around 1944 or so, he’d be facing a fully armed America that could commit all its forces to fighting Germany whenever it chose. He figured correctly that it was smarter to fight an unprepared America in 1942 with Japan fighting alongside him.
I wonder what went through Adolfs head when he heard about our “Defeat Germany First” policy?
Probably pride. He certainly wouldn’t have wanted to be perceived as a lesser threat than Japan was.
I thought you said WII speculation. Gives a completely different answer.
Some years ago I participated in a war game positing Operation Sealion had gotten a green light – probably a recreation of the Sandhurst game. I commanded a destroyer squadron as part of a screening force whose mission was to prevent the arrival of RN reinforcements from Scapa Flow. We did our part at great cost, but the invasion was a failure – no Germans got on the beach. Crummy landing barges and the RAF, I was told.
Just finished a book about the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbour- extremely interesting. It said amongst other things that the loss (obviously apart from lives) to the Americans was insignificant.
Basically the Japanese sunk a few battleships that belonged to a generation that was already out dated. They would not be fast enough to keep up with carrier groups.
And more telling- even if the Japanese had sunk every ship that day- including all the aircraft carriers that were absent and not lost a Japanese ship in 30 months, they would have not been able to match American military strength by that time. Such was the might of American Industrialism.
The Japanese were never a real threat compared to the the Germans with the industry the possessed- and although few like to admit it the Soviets eventually destroyed Nazi Germany. No war against the Soviets- maybe a chance against the other allies- but again invading Britain was probably not a real chance.
And I don’t think we should ever underestimate the role that Canada played in keeping the sealanes open.
Where does that leave us?
No attack on the Soviet Union? Greater chance of winning but let us not forget that the Battle of Britain had been won before Germany attacked the Soviets.
Given that there could have been no occupation of the UK.
As stated above, the USA would have beaten Japan no matter what.
I think a bigger “What-If” would be: “What if the US hadn’t embargoed Oil Supplies to Japan?”
Japan doesn’t bomb Pearl Harbour (or invade the East Indies), the US stays out of the War, and after withdrawing from Dunkirk the British and the Germans continue to snipe at each other and eventually get sick of the whole thing and call it a draw.
I think Fatherland is probably the most plausible of the “What if Germany won WWII” scenarios; although even that still takes some liberties IMHO.
Here’s what Churchill had to say–note how Japan’s fate is relegated almost to an afterthought:
Oddly enough, I think the much-reviled Chiang Kai-shek, and perhaps even more so Madame Chiang, deserve some credit. They gave China sympathetic PR in the US at a time when the country was facing Japan alone, and I imagine this encouraged proponents of the embargo. I’ll admit that I’m not much up on the US side of this history, though.