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Germans didn't have enough cold weather gear or food and were pretty exhausted by the time they reached Stalingrad
Yup, they were all booked into hotels for when they arrived (I'm not completely joking either - officers had been already allocated which hotels, etc, they were going to stay in, such was the level of organisation) which was rather silly.
Of course the battle of Stalingrad lasted between 17 July 1942 and 2 February 1943, so the Germans had plenty of time to send for their warm coats, food, etc. which they had forgotten.
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Great book, iirc.
I'm unconvinced that would have happened that easily
I agree, but for the sake of the hypothesis I reckon:
a) easier to do if you've got a clear route through the Caucasus as a second front
b) US military assistance to Russia wasn't negligible
c) without the N. Africa front and having to keep troops on the Channel they'd have had more spare and more strategic focus on the eastern front.
Also perhaps, if you've got W Europe quiet, and you're already sitting on the middle east (as I postulate) do you need to go very far into Soviet territory at all?
I agree, having committed to a war against Russia it's hard to see how Nazi germany wins the war. I agree I'm not convinced mine works.
There would probably have been 'regime change' since then. But I was wondering what would have happened if the Germans were stopped very early, No holocaust etc. I was thinking that actually without the spectre of Nazism, their might actually still be a greater degree of anti-semitism and racism than there is now.
Humbers, Rovers and Austins would be the quality motors instead of Volkswagens, BMWs and Mercs. The Mercedes Allegro would be a pretty good example of the failing German car industry of the '70s.
US military assistance to Russia wasn't negligible
No it wasn't, nor was British assistance - irrc the Soviet air force even had some Spitfires. The Western Allies were keen to help the Soviets as they doing most of the fighting against the Germans, which was kinda handy - even Churchill was well impressed. But I'm far from convinced that they couldn't have succeded without Western material support. It would undoubtedly have taken longer of course. But as Stalingrad proved, time was generally on the Soviets side. Blitzkrieg kinda of loses it effect if it's stalled.
you'd all have to have flammkeuche and eidinger for tea like I've just had, lovely.
Nick
I wonder how long they would have been able to sustain an administration of occupation. History of late twentieth century saw the collapse of the repressive regimes right across Europe.
Imagine if Britain had a velvet revolution or tore down it's own wall.
We would still end up with liberal capitalist globalisation. But we'd keep the sausages and beer.
BD's thesis is pretty much what Hitler expected. The German military were unprepared for war with Britain in 39, because they didn't expect it to happen. The Germans then and now see stronger cultural and societal ties / values than perhaps we see looking the other way. The English, after all, are bastardised Germans 😉
With Britain defeated or neutral there would have been no strategic bombing campaign, and no materially costly Uboat war
Yes of course, I had forgotten the ol' argument : "the Germans hadn't realised that Russian winters were cold - if it hadn't been for the Russian winter they would never have been defeated".
Hitler should have had a better knowledge of military history as it was theRussian winter that stopped Napoleon as well
Was it not the vastness? If the Germans had consolidated along a defensible boundary the outcome might have been a different iron curtain, further to the east.
There was a widely held view that if Hitler was deposed, then the German high command could broker a separate peace with the western allies. Stalin was paranoid this would result in an Anglo-German alliance fighting against Communism... The yanks and soviets were suspicious of Churchill's "imperialist" motives
Of course, the discovery of the concentration camps made this untenable in the eyes of the world
Stalin was paranoid this would result in an Anglo-German alliance fighting against Communism
Are you sure it was "paranoia" on Stalin's part ? Britain made it clear that it wished no alliance with the Soviet Union against the German threat when it snubbed them in favour of Poland as a preferred eastern ally. A silly mistake imo which over estimated Poland's military strength and forced Stalin into a non-aggression treaty with Hitler.
Just to throw more intrigue into this but didn't GB declare war on Germany due to the invasion of Poland and then let Poland go to another dictator at the end of the war?
We may have saved ourselves in WWII but did not win in the sense of the very reason we went war in the first place thus exposing our neighbour to a dictator whose body count was arguably higher than Hitlers?
In Stalin's regime 1924 - 1953 ultra-conservative estimates are 20 million although some accounts suggest as many as 50 - 70 million may have perished.
Surpassed only perhaps by Bruce Willis's body count in Die Hard.....
Paranoia iq an easy adjective to use with "Stalin"! But, yes, not as outlandish as it might seem from our modern perspective. There were plenty in power here and in Germany that would have been sympathetic to rolling the Soviet Union back to it's own Borders. Of course, the Germans were materially destroyed and the UK materially and financially dependent on the US
Sausages, Würst, you'd be eating them on a daily basis, mit Speck. Counterfactual history on STW eh, who'd have thunk it. 😉
estimates are 20 million although some accounts suggest as many as 50 - 70 million may have perished.
LOL ........ just keep piling on the millions - who cares ! 😀
it'd be bit cleaner for starters
Would the UK have autobahns?
That would be good fun 😉
Would like to think I would be running around Aberfoyle? a la red dawn, perhaps with me as the paddy swayze good guy.
I could then pop into the david marshall lodge for a wee cake before mowing down more of zee germans. DML probbaly wouldn't exist mind you.... bugger.
BigDummy - MemberIf you assume unconditional surrender following a massive invasion then it's anybody's guess. I reckon a negotiated peace in 1940, with no invasion of most of the UK was perhaps more likely.
Enough of the British upper class were sympathetic enough to the anti-Bolshevik/anti-semitic/social discipline agenda that forming a respectable British government willing to make peace with Germany would have been perfectly feasible. If the army had been entirely lost in France or at Dunkirk and the airforce had collapsed in summer 1940, a negotiated peace, without full occupation, would have been perfectly feasible. I'd hazard that people would have been quite relieved not to have their cities flattened. The king would have talked about the proud people of Britain and germany having much in common. Stability would have reigned. Industry would have prospered. There would have been a customs union and that sort of thing. Hitler is pleased to have the irritant of Britain out of the war, and even more relieved not to have Britain soliciting US aid. He is well aware of the vast US contribution to finishing germany off in 1918, and avoidance of the US weighing in is the single biggest achievement of the peace treaty with Britain.
Britain as a land-mass would have been of modest strategic significance, I'm sceptical that a major occupation would have been necessary. With Britain out of the fighting, Ireland might well have come off the fence and allowed submarine and air bases on their Atlantic coast, so apart from perhaps wanting submarine bases up in Northern Scotland it's hard to see why Germany would press for many bases or garrisons.
The main significance is that British control of Suez and the middle east ceases to be an issue. German shipping can suddenly pass through the canal unimpeded, and its sea-lanes in the Pacific are protected by the British navy. German ships have free passage along the African coast and the huge markets that opens up.
The British navy supports German troops fightig through Greece towards the Bosphorous, and allows German control of Iraq. Germany now has access to vast oilfields and is able to push into the USSR from the south across the Caucasus. The British navy pushes up the Baltic and harrasses Russian supply lines. Without Churchill's mediation with the US, Roosevelt does not send military supplies to the Russians. Russia collapses in 1944. Germany can consolidate, with unimpeded Western sea-lanes, access to middle eastern oilfields and varying control over most countries of Western Europe.
With no enemies to the North, German occupation of N. France or the low countries is not necessary. These countries have german attached military advisors in most units and staff headquarters. France, Ireland and the UK join Spain as politically compatible countries in a military alliance under german leadership. Their political cultures move towards Nazi ones (much admired in many circles in the 1930s) but with victory over the Communist menace assured and their economies powering ahead, Western European leaders do not find the need to scape-goat their jewish minorities particularly. The worst excesses of the holocaust are not felt in Western Europe, although the yiddish-speaking population of eastern europe is virtually wiped out as German lilitary controla nd the long war against the USSR grinds East.
It doesn't seem very important at the time, but the zionist settlements in German-controlled Palestine are largely wiped out. Hitler gives the go-ahead to Haj-Amin to organise the complete destruction of Jewish religious sites in Jerusalem. Skilful political manipulation of Arab leaders produces Ba'athist governments in Iraq and Syria. German military control of the Suez canal is complete, but it prefers to leave local security and control of the oilfields to corrupt and unrepresentative oligarchies with whom they can deal.
Well that's as maybe BigDummy. My wife on the other hand would be far more concerned about how often she would have to clean the coffee table.
We would have been a lot better at penalties
More seriously now,Germany would have probably got the A bomb and rocket technology. The US certainly wouldn't have developed the latter without the aid of ex-Nazi scientists
The US certainly wouldn't have developed the latter without the aid of ex-Nazi scientists
Really ?.......the US could develop the A bomb, but certainly wouldn't have developed ballistic missiles ?
Is it fair to say that nuclear technology ain't exactly rocket science then ? Makes you wonder why the Germans didn't get all their clever scientists to concentrate on nuclear weapons though.
thats piece o crap known as rover would never have existed 🙂
David Hasslehoff would be in the charts.
Makes you wonder why the Germans didn't get all their clever scientists to concentrate on nuclear weapons though.
Well, that's because by the time they'd worked out roughly what they needed to do to make it work, they'd also worked out it would take them longer than they had. So instead they put their resources into making lots more conventional weapons in the hope of staving off the Russian counter-attack. They weren't really that far off up until late 43 when they pretty much pulled the plug on their nuclear projects.
I think we'd be back to normal by now but we'd have had a few decades of escalating resistance and finally a messy war of re-independence. It's not like fascist or communist dictatorships have managed to survive anywhere in Europe.
Kraftwerk would have had more number 1's.
It's a bit of a head twister to think that had it not been for Hitler, my German Grandfather wouldn't have campaigned against his actions, then fled the country, met my Grandmother and I wouldn't exist, neither would my daughter.
I could then present myself with the conundrum that would I want it to be different - i.e. Hitler didn't do what Hitler did.
The answer would of course have to be yes. Sacrificing myself as I know life now would be a harder question, but to have never existed in the first place, yet hundreds of thousands of Jews not to have met with a horrible death is not really too hard to contemplate.
Say what you like about the Nazis, they were always smartly turned out!
I heard that they were designed by Hugo Boss, but never found out whether this was an urban myth or not!
As an aside, how do these kind of threads on forums work alongside Godwin's Law? Who do you compare the Nazi's to, to invoke it?!
I'm now getting flash adverts for the Hilton Hotel in Dresden.
Is it a trap?
Who do you compare the Nazi's to, to invoke it?!
The forum moderators? 😉
So let's say that Germany successfully invaded Britain in 1940, or there was a negotiated peace - any thoughts on how this might have affected the war in the far east /pacific? Do you think Germany would have allied itself with Japan against Britain and/or the US, helped the Japanese into India,or stayed neutral or even helped Britain? A second front against Russia with the Japanese invading through Manchuria?
You ask too many question Herr Schnullelieber.
There would not have been any "negotiated peace". If the Hun had invaded these sacred isles, the war against the menace of tyranny, would have continued throughout the British Empire and her Dominions. Whilst subjugation at home would have been met with fierce covert and unrelenting resistance, we would never surrender.
If the Hun had invaded these sacred isles, the war against the menace of tyranny, would have continued throughout the British Empire and her Dominions. Whilst subjugation at home would have been met with fierce covert and unrelenting resistance, we would never surrender.
You like to think that would have been the case don't you, not so sure though.
Given the grip that government propaganda had over the British people I don't think it would have taken too long to convince the public that a negotiated settlement was a good idea.
With big dummy up to the point about the Jews,the Nazis only decided to exterminate them in 1941,up to then they favoured repatriation.One of the reasons Germany struggled in Russia was the fact that they were over commited elsewhere; (propping up the Italians in Africa for a start.)I think without this,and having fewer drains on their resources,and better routes of supply,they would have stopped Russia developing the capacity for manufacture that they needed to stop the Germans.They had tank factories way beyond the range of German bombers that churned out four tanks for every one the Germans did.Plus the fact the German infrastructure was becoming increasingly affected by bombing by late 1941.The sheer scale of Russia made this difficult (plus,what infrastructure)
I have always been interested what Hess was supposed to be bringing to the UK.And why he was locked up until he died.
Herr Lynch;I thought we got all of your lot after the Riechstag fire...
From the point were Hitler turned away from Calais there was never a chance that the Germans were going to win. All military wisdom is to avoid war on two fronts. Hitler actually chose to open up on three, Africa, Western Europe and Russia. Having split his forces he was screwed..... am I the only person here to play Risk?? 😯
I have always been interested what Hess was supposed to be bringing to the UK.
Warm fraternal best wishes and greetings from Herr Hitler to the British aristocracy, Conservative Grandees, and Royal Family, I believe.
am I the only person here to play Risk??
Nope. I guess he should have actually invaded Oz - two extra armies per turn and only one route of entry! (And noone ever managed to keep Asia)
some things wouldn't change
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For a view of what Germany would be like if they won WW2, read Fatherland by Robert Harris. Awesome book just finished it.
Indeed! And in that book, set in the mid '60s the Nazi empire is just about to start crumbling as cracks appear in the propaganda machine.
cracks appear in the propaganda machine.
So they never did a deal with Rupert Murdoch then ?
btw I had no idea that the Nazi Empire was held together by a "propaganda machine". Did they French, Dutch, Yugoslavs, etc, not know that it was just "propaganda" ?
Nazi Empire was held together by a "propaganda machine"
It is in the book above ^^^^^
Big Dummies sounds like the best story so far...
Had Britain settled for a negotiated peace in June 1940 Hitler would not have waited as late as he did to kick off Barbarossa and therefore would likely have captured Moscow.
Cut off without allies and having lost Moscow the Japanese may well have been tempted to take chunks from a now weakened Russia.
We could play these games all night, Harry Turtledove's books are worth a look if you like alternate history. You want Hitler kicking off WW2 early or alien reptile invaders in WW2? You've got it!
There is also an Aussie author who wrote a story about a 21st century carrier group getting transported back to the Battle of Midway...