You're Hitler. When do you call it quits?

Great Debates
41

By December 7, 1941, Germany had done almost everything it could do that would piss off the US, short of declaring war and beginning unrestricted sinking of American shipping. In fact German subs had already sunk American ships “by mistake”, and they had already declared war and/or invaded almost every country that they wanted.

And still, the US didn’t declare war on Germany. Then their ally Japan attacked Pearl Harbor and a shitload of other American, British and Dutch territories around the Pacific.

And still, the US didn’t declare war on Germany. Not until several days later, after Germany declared war first. So I’d argue that Germany’s declaration made a BIG difference. There would be all kinds of reasons for the US to focus on the war with Japan, and either avoid or delay a war with Germany. Just delaying the war for a year or two would have made a big difference.

42

Ah, you’re right. I was thinking of the Zimmermann telegram. I’d make up some nice excuse for why, but really it boils down to I’m an idiot sometimes. Thanks for the correction.

43

By time Germany declared war, it probably wouldn’t have mattered. The US was already involved in the most important way we could be, we were sending supplies to England and Russia. The actual declaration of war was so late that Germany realistically didn’t have much hope of victory. However, if Germany had provoked the US less often earlier in the war, it’s possible Congress and/or public opinion would have prevented lend lease and other forms of aid.

44

While this is true, it is also true that FDR had been licking his chops over going to war for a long time. His New Deal programs were failing miserably. War allowed many things to be nationalized, killed off half a million men that would otherwise be standing in soup lines, and the baby boom afterwards stimulated consumer spending and the economy (capitalism!). It was the American public that didn’t want war in Europe. That is what held FDR back for so long.

45

Sure, and I don’t think Pearl Harbor changed that. What DID change it was Hitler’s war declaration, which showed him to be a cynical opportunist who was kicking us when we were down.

46

Assuming I was Hitler and I had a foreknowledge of history, I’d have stopped at France and concentrated on trying to appease the US and pressure the UK into some sort of settlement, while remaining at peace with Russia. If the UK couldn’t have been compelled or coerced into peace then I probably would have launched the Africa campaign to take the British territories in North Africa and the ME, and consolidated my grasp on French empire territories.

However, since I couldn’t have stomached the pogroms and ‘final solution’ stuff against the Jews, I probably wouldn’t have lasted long in Nazi Germany in any case…or I would have expended major effort to win over the non-Nazi Wehrmacht folks, and the same with the non-Nazi government and industrialist types in a sort of extension of the Night of Long Knives, though with it’s target as pretty much the entire Nazi party.

Then I would declare myself Kaiser and kick back to a life of scantily clad German biscuits peeling me grapes and fanning me with, um, fan shaped sausages and bringing me beer. Oh…and I’d outlaw sauerkraut…

-XT

47

What would this have accomplished? Hitler got all the cooperation he needed out of the army and industry.

But this reminds me, I would have installed some kind of rational division of power among my deputies, to avoid so many of the intrigues and conflicting decisions that wasted so much time and resources.

48

Do you really think France’s colonial empire would have been an asset for Germany? There was almost no industry, not that many territories with interesting ressources, and Nazi Germany would not have fielded black soldiers, so even human ressources wouldnt have amounted to much.

49

We all make mistakes … just like the Germans did when they bombed Pearl Harbor!

50

I was quoting Red Dwarf (British sci-fi comedy).

51

I presume that if I wanted to stop the Jew hating and murders/violence I’d need to appeal to a group other than the Nazi’s, or I’d end up as dog chow. Hitler had the cooperation of the army and industry (not absolute on either), but XT as Hitler would need to get their cooperation to help me avoid the Holocaust.

The French colonial empire had plenty of natural resources that Germany could have used (rubber for one thing). I think it would have been more profitable for Germany to consolidate their gains in Europe and possibly North Africa (assuming the Brits didn’t throw in the towel), and part of that would have been asserting sovereignty and annexing the rest of Frances possessions…by force if necessary. It would have beaten a losing adventure in Russia and the madness of going to war with the US (I’d have made every effort to patch things up with America by bending over backwards if necessary and attempting to bring them in to mediate a more than equitable peace with the UK…Americans would have lapped it up, especially if I threw in some juicy trade agreements and such while publicly appealing to them to help stop the madness and violence of war, blah blah blah). And when Japan went to war with the US (assuming I took over from Hitler before this) I’d have disavowed all contact with the Japanese and told them they were on their own…maybe even offering Germany’s support for the US in their hour of need at the dastardly attack, etc etc (plus, assuming I arrived on the scene before the Russian invasion I could have provided the Americans with intel indicating that the Japanese were planning an attack, down to when and where, which would have helped my cred with the US quite a bit).

-XT

52

Germans?

  • Quiet, he’s on a roll…
53

Since Hitler started all the Holocaust stuff, I very much doubt he would have needed much help to stop it, and if he decided this in 1933 he would need no help at all.

I think you are reading the OP question as, “You, and your moral values, are inserted into Hitler’s body…”. I think most others are interpreting it as, “If Hitler knew in advance how the war played out, what would he have changed or where would he have stopped to maximize German gains.”

Honestly, from that POV I don’t see any reason at all why he would have stopped the Holocaust. It was running smoothly to the last says of the war, and while it kept some troops off the front lines, they wouldn’t have been needed there anyway had he run the war better.

54

It wouldn’t be me then, as there is zero way I could have let something like that happen, let alone being a primary instigator of it. Besides, from a practical perspective it diverted a lot of Germany’s resources away from more productive and profitable things, so even if I was able to let something like that happen ‘I’ would think it a stupid waste of resources, and would have stopped it. At most an ‘I’ that wasn’t really me MIGHT have tried a ‘ship them all the the ME’ type solution as part of a peace settlement with the UK, who controlled the Trans-Jordan region.

I would go for the scantily clad big breasted large bottomed Germany luv muffins thingy though…

-XT

55

What do you mean, stop? Why would you stop?

What you would do is institute a crash program to develop the atomic bomb before you start.

56

But then all that happens is the Jews get their own country from which they can plot the destruction of western civilization and the Aryan race, so how is that any better?

57

If you are starting in 1933, and considering what Hitler could do differently to achieve success in the future, the easiest thing to implement immediately that would have the biggest payoff for Hitler would be to arrange to have Churchill have a fatal “accident.” This will make it much more likely that he will be able to achieve some form of co-existence with the British empire when the time for armed conflict comes, or at worst after the fall of France. That’s one big piece of the puzzle for him right there.

Ultimately, though, the major obstacles to Hitler’s plans are the Soviet Union, and then the U.S.

The winning play here is to convince the Japanese that their future (and the resources that they need) lies in Siberia (and of course China), not in the Dutch East Indies. If he can keep the Japanese from striking the U.S., and if he has reached some sort of accomodation with England, the U.S. may never muster the political will to overcome isolationism before Germany is strong enough to absorb and repel any transatlantic invasion attempt.

That leaves the biggest problem, the Soviets.

First, let Mussolini get his ass handed to him by the Greeks in '40 - '41. It will be just as easy to overrun the Balkans after dealing with the Soviets, and the Greeks do not pose a strategic threat to Hitler. By not being provoked into an early invasion of Greece and Yugoslavia, Hitler can enjoy 6 to 8 more weeks of good campaigning weather in Russia during that crucial first year.

Thanks to the extra time and also to the simultaneous invasion of Siberia by his Japanese allies, which will prevent the elite Siberian troops from being transferred westward, and with the beneift of hindsight of the need for better preparation for the Russian winter, Hitler will be able to take Moscow and hold it through the winter of '41 - '42.

If that happens, I think it is not unlikely Stalin would be “purged” by one of his generals.

If Hitler successfully avoided a two-front war and instead forced the Soviets into a two-front war, he just might have been able to reduce the Soviets to a runt state east of the Urals byh 1943 or 1944, less what the Japanese were able to wrest away from them in the east.

Not a slam dunk, as the will of the Russian people to fight and to repel the invader was great, and even a runt Soviet state would still pose a considerable threat.

In any case, this would be the time to address any concerns in the Balkans.

With Europe from the Pyrenees to the Urals under his control, and with no active conflict with the British Empire and the U.S., Hitler would probably have liked his chances for dying of old age in Berchtesgarden instead of eating a bullet in his bunker in Berlin.

58

They are out of Europe of course, from a practical perspective. Since it would be some form of ‘me’ controlling Hitler, I don’t believe in any of that bullshit anyway, so the reason would be to protect the Jews from my less enlightened fellow Europeans. :stuck_out_tongue:

I wouldn’t even do the above unless the ‘I’ in Hitler wasn’t actually me in any case. I’d go the other way and destroy the Nazi party and prevent the whole mess if I could. If it was impossible then I’d prevent the slaughter by doing it this way I guess, since I don’t see any other alternative.

That’s why this thread really doesn’t work. I don’t believe ANY of us are capable of being Hitler enough to make it work. Assuming we were born as Hitler, none of us would follow the life paths he has, so we wouldn’t wind up in remotely similar positions. Assuming (as I did) that somehow we magically take over for Hitler at some point in history (a la the Gunslinger with Eddy or Susanna I suppose) then we’d have to figure out how to reconcile ourselves being Hitler and knowing what is coming with the inner ‘us’ that probably would be completely repelled by the mere thought of what we know is going to happen. Plus, we’d have to do so, in theory at least, with an eye to changing history such that there would be a possibility of a better outcome…or at least a less horrific one. Assuming (as I did) that I ‘took over’ for Hitler sometime after Hitler was firmly in charge and the war had started, I’d stop German expansion whenever I took over. If it was prior to the invasion of Poland then I’d stop before the invasion of Poland. If it was before the invasion of France then I’d stop it before the invasion of France (unless the allies were already at war with Germany, in which case I’d go ahead with the invasion of France but then follow broadly the things I detailed earlier). If it was after the invasion of Russia I’d…well, I’m not sure. Germany was fucked at that point, and also already on the path of mass murder of the Jews and other undesirables. So, I suppose I’d do what I could to mitigate that, perhaps attempt to short circuit the German war effort (Hitler did enough of that in the real universe) and possibly have a lot of the top ranked Nazi types whacked. Then I’d boogie, if possible, or die, as seems more likely.

I realize that the OP didn’t stipulate any of this, and that I’m way over thinking this entire thing, and that none of my stuff is really in the spirit of the OP. That’s just the way I see it.

-XT

59

The proof of this: in a top-secret meeting with the senior army staff (late 1941); Hitler admitted that defeating Russia was impossible. All the calculations given (German steel output, tank production, gasoline supplies, etc.) showed that Germany would lose-this was known, even before the US entry into WWII guaranteed defeat.what was Hitler’s reaction? Plan another disatrous offensive for Spring, 1942. He should have opened negotiations with Stalin and sued for peace.

60

Do you have a cite for this? I’ve never heard that Hitler knew this, whether or not some of his generals believed it.