How Hitler could have won WWII?

[thenorthman]

I am just throwing this out there.

My professor once said that Germany was still active in terms of propaganda.  Some of the biggest proprgandas was that,

1). Germany lost the war because of the Harsh Soviet winter
2). Germay didn't ever get to full production.
3). etc.

Well the winter didn't help matters at all.  But in all honest truth they didn't plan well enough the assualt onto Russia.  They thought it would be easy.  After all they had beat them once already in the First war.  The supply lines is what got them and that came from the partisians and, well lack of planning.

It wasn't a matter of going to war time production because they didn't decide to go to war production.  It is because of other things that prevented it from going to full production.

Now I have a book they are teaching on campus (of course it is just one opinion which all history is ) I will have to find it and post what and who it is from for folks to read.  It is a great book.

Sean

[RandR]

What you'll need to find is some literature from the German perspective as to why they lost the war.

[thenorthman]

Yea your porably right on that one.

Although with that perspective you might not get the total truth either.  That was part of the argument of the book I had read for the class was that the german military has conventinatly blamed most if not all of its failures on Hitler or other things but not on actually any short comings the "military" made on tactical decisions.

Proably have to come up with your own opinion after getting both or even three or more different perspectives of it.

I rally need to find the book so I can at least put the title out there.

Sean

[thenorthman]

Another thing kind of off the subject here was that Russia would of been lost with out the US help that we gave them.

This book also explores that (it was like 1500 pages or so) as well.

It brings to light that the Russian army actually did alot on its own and actually beat the Germans in numerous battles before the US was even in the war......

I will make a point to find the book.....

Sean

[Victor Naborski]

Yea I would really like to know what book that is.  Im interested into that kind of stuff and would like to get a hand on one of them.

[thenorthman]

Okay went and dug it up out of the garage.  I really need to get unpacked.

The book is "A World at Arms" by Gerhard L. Weinberg

"The author was born in Germany and spent the first year of World War II in England and served in the U.S. army occupation in Japan.  After recieving his Ph.D from the University of Chicago in 1951 he worked on Columbia Universitie's War Documentation Project, directed the American Historical Association's project for microfilming captured German documents, and found and edited Hitlers second book.  He is the author fo numerous books and articles on the orgins and course of World War II, including a prize winning two-volume study of the Foreign Policy of Hitler's Germany.  He has taught at the universites of Chicago, kentucky, and Michigan, was a visting professor at Bonn University and at the U.S. Air Force Academy, and since 1974 has been William Rand Kenan Jr. Professor of History at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. " excerpt from the inside cover.

It actually is a pretty good book and I was mistaken about the length of it.  The actual "reading" part of it is 920 pages then anotther 250 pages of notes to the pages and maps and index.

Sean King

[solomongrundy]

Hi guys...I played a few years ago at GenCon and I just bwanted to add my piece!!

I totally agree with Christoph 100%! Germany had no chance of winning the war once they invaded the USSR.  The track record of the war shows that the Nazis only defeated countries that were economically or industrially weaker than themselves. It took the USSr some time but the industrial potential they had was too great.  All the bombing the Allies did on GErmany really did not have a huge impact on their ability to produce weapons of war...in some cases, their output increased in 1943-1944.  The problem with the Nazis was that their industrial base was not designed for a long war......they were developed to produce weapons of quality, but it would take extra time to produce these., and maintainance was a bitch since the machines (especially the tanks) tended to be so complicated (but beautiful) in design.

They couldn't possibly get close to the USSR industrial base in the Urals because their bombers were not long range in design. Basically it all came down to the numbers, which the Nazis couldn't match the Soviets in.

Those vast Russin Steppes........they just gobbled the Wehrmacht up!!!

[Mark]

Wow- Chad is back!

For those of you who don't know - One of the best German players out of the gates by the way - first time playing the game and he nearly schooled folks that had been playing the game for a couple years. . .

Hope you can make it to Origins or GenCon this Summer - we have a new challenge for you - Eric from Detroit is gunning for the best rookie award.

[John D.]

Hi Chad!
    What does your schedule look like this year? Can you make any major cons?

John
   

[RandR]

Just remember folks, everything we do here is 20/20 hindsight. All the blunders made by the Axis we learned from long after the after action reports were analyzed and the end results were determined to be blunders. Now we can reapply better strategy in a game and try to realize how BLEAK things really could have been if the strategy had gone in a different direction and BETTER planning had been accomplished.

[norseman]

Just a thought. Some people believe that it would have been possible to create a stalemate with Russia in the areas of white russia and the ukraine/polish borders. Despite their overwhelming superiority in numbers, the Russians still struggled to plan effective offensives and were almost always tactically inferior to the germans. The success of their offensives (uranus, bagration, etc) were almost universally aided by german incompetence in the form of Hitler overruling his generals with ludicrous demands (although the stalingrad disaster was also due to paulus's poor response to the soviet offensive and misuse of his tanks). Had Hitler left the management of the eastern front to his more effective generals (manstein and balck spring to mind) I consider it very possible that a stalemate could have been achieved on the eastern to the point where neither side had the forces left to mount an effective offensive. It is hard to believe that the Russians could run out of manpower but consider that by 1944-45 the russians had lost most of their "fit" fighting men and were filling out divisions with older and younger conscripts not as suited to offensive operations.
other evidence might include mansteins successful fighting withdrawal of army group south after the failure of the Stalingrad offensive. in bitter weather against overwhelming numbers of fresh russian troops and material, and with tired worn out, understrength divisions of his own, manstein.....
1. managed to mount a counteroffensive against stalingrad that might have succeeded had things fallen a little differently
2. managed to extricate almost all of army group b and army group a from their tenuous positions, and retreat under incredibly difficult conditions while being pursued by a superior enemy with large armored forces
3. mount an effective counterattack on russian forces
4. reform lines and stabilize the front
end note: he pretty much saved the entire southern front from collapsing and managed to save most of his troops in the process. I personally consider this retreat campaign one of the greatest military accomplishments in history.
For the overall point consider the massive casualties manstein managed to inflict on the soviets during the dnieper offensive while being hobbled by hitlers incredibly stupid command decisions. Also consider the initial difficulty the soviets had tactically against vastly inferior opponents in many engagements-ex. their struggles during the battle of the seklow heights during the final drive on berlin.
overall i think stalemate with russia would have been possible. yes the axis would almost certainty lost the war eventually but things would be very different

[norseman]

seelow heights*