Why the Germans lost WW2

[unreasonable]

Given German behavior and decisions then yes I agree defeat was inevitable. It may be that given the Nazi mindset, AH's in particular, no other decisions were likely.

 

But imagine this scenario in early 1942.

 

1) The initial failure of Barbarossa is a fact. But this did not mean that the Soviets had won, only that they were not going to lose quickly.

 

2) Instead of thinking that they could knock out the USSR in 1942 the Germans go for a long war, avoiding the extension of the front in Case Blue and the disaster of Stalingrad, instead luring the Soviets into traps where they could be destroyed (Kursk in reverse).

 

3) After Pearl Harbour AH goes out of his way not to provoke the US, perhaps pulling the U boats back to the E. Atlantic. (Or even declaring war on Japan!)

 

4) While the US administration keeps up some support for the British, the US people and congress become fixated on beating Japan and unwilling to initiate another conflict. So while the RAF continues its night bomber attacks and commando raids there is no daylight bombing and most of the German AA and fighter units can stay in the east.

 

5) Germany goes to a more defensive stance on the E. front avoiding the Stalingrad disaster, and goes for oil (its weakest point) through doing a deal with Franco to get at Gibralter, sealing off the Med, invading Malta and reinforcing North Africa enough to turf the British out of Egypt. They then strike for Mosul and Basra.

 

6) The Germans also mobilize for total war a year or so before they did historically.

 

In this scenario the Soviet build up would be much less due to limited US interest, German losses much lower, and I expect that that Soviet attacks could have been comfortably repelled. Who knows how the politics would have worked out? I wonder if someone had managed to assassinate AH who might have come out on top and would they have tried a plan like this?

[Finkeren]

Your scenario is interesting, but also extremely unlikely IMHO.

 

It requires an extremely unlikely deal with Franco (who had only just secured his power and weren't interested in crossing the UK), involves Germany in another extremely difficult war in the Middle East all the while expecting the US to completely sit on its hands.

 

It also ignores the fact, that it would allow the USSR to build up their production capacity beyond the Ural, lessening the need for American supplies.

 

Moreover it glosses over the war in the Pacific which would likely result in a Japanese defeat much faster, and makes the assumption that the US wouldn't at any point up its help to the USSR anyway (which they very likely would have)

[unreasonable]

Hmmm..

 

1) Franco actually was begging AH to be allowed join the Axis once he thought Germany was winning, but AH turned him down because he thought that supporting Spain (which was basically broke and hungry) would be too much of a drain, beside which he though Franco was insufferable. Overall, AH discounted the importance of the Med theatre until it was too late to actually win there, which was a major strategic mistake.

 

2) While the USSR was building up its production, but so was Germany + all its satellites. In a battle of attrition USSR east of the Urals vs the whole of the rest of continental Europe would almost certainly go Europe's way, especially if the Germans had been nice to the Ukranians.

 

3) I do not believe that the US could have beaten Japan any earlier than they did. US productive potential was far in excess of what was needed to defeat Japan, the problem was mainly logistical, capturing and base building on a series of islands until they were in bomber range of the home islands, at which point game over.

 

4) If a reinforced Africa Korps had taken Egypt and the Med was cleared of UK shipping and airpower, supporting a campaign towards Iraq would not have been especially difficult. After all, they were only facing British and Commonwealth forces.

 

The last point I agree is key: if AH had not provoked the US would they still have made a major contribution to Soviet victory or even entered the war at all? As I said before, I do not think Wall Street would have allowed the US to leave the UK to default/defeat. But then the yanks were not especially keen on communism, to put it mildly, so who knows?

 

A number of contingencies to be sure, many of them hard for anyone with a Nazi mindset to stomach. But anyway that is what I would have done if I were Adolf. Then again, if I were Adolf I would have stuck to the painting!

[Finkeren]

I see your overall points. But I disagree with the conclusion, that this would be feasible.

 

1. There is no question that Franco was aching to join Hitlers adventures in the East. I remain unconvinced, that he would be quite so eager to help seal off the Mediterranean by attacking the British. The Spanish have several centuries of bad experiences trying to tackle British naval power. Any attempts to challenge the British high seas fleet in direct combat (which would be the very likely result of trying to seal off the Strait of Gibraltar) would have met a very quick end.

 

2. While the productive capacity of the whole of Europe far exeeds that of trans-Ural USSR, remember, that only a small fraction of it was directly under German control, and even less of it was geared towards war production useful to Germany. To reform production of a dozen or more independent economies into a total war-effort for Germany would have been a massive undertaking.

 

3. It might have been so, we don't really know. We do know it was a political priority to defeat Germany first, and that a substantial amount of the most advanced American technology was employed in the ETO, there is no telling how quickly the Japanese might have been squashed, had the US focused solely on them.

 

4. Even if Germany had been able to decisively defeat GB in North Africa (which I think is doubtful, it's not just a question of sending more troops and equipment. Doing that might actually have made things worse) then capturing and holding the Middle East would have been yet another massive undertaking. Just keeping the whole thing under control would require a large percentage of German Manpower, which would be tied up away from the fighting (just look at how many German forces it took to keep Jugoslavia under control, do you think the Middle East would have been easier?) And then there is another issue: Once you move into Persia, you face a double threat from the USSR in Caucasus in the North and the UK in India to the East. The Red Army might not have wanted to begin its assault on the Wehrmacht in Europe but rather defeat them in the Middle East in a joint operation with the UK and Commonwealth forces from sub-Saharan Africa and India (Damn, that's a cool scenario - someone should make an alternative history game based on this!)

 

All things considered: It's surely an interesting scenario, but I find it thoroughly unlikely, that the Germans would have come out victorious from this.

Edited February 21, 2014 by Finkeren

[DD_Arthur]

Why didn't the Soviet Union collapse internally in WW2?

 

The mass of the Russian population had been little more than slaves for the better part of a millenium until early 1917 when the February revolution brought a glimmer of hope.  However, later that year Lenin got off his sealed train, made a successful power grab and swiftly reverted to type.

 

All the early Bolshevik leaders had been imprisoned under the Tsar for revolutionary activity but had been released.  They simply learned to be a lot more ruthless.  The Cheka, the Red terror........under the the soviet regime when you were sent to Siberia you rarely came back.

 

Consider the three great monsters of the twentieth century; Stalin, Hitler and Mao and forget about the ideology.  Then they simply become more extreme versions of what had been before.

 

Could Hitler have played his hand differently?  Certainly.  Hitler seems to have been an admirer of the British empire but had no conception as to how it worked and thus launched a war of conquest and genocide in the east where initially, in certain areas like the Baltic states and the Ukraine, German troops were initially greeted as liberators from Soviet oppression.

The adventure into North Africa can be seen as a classic example of mission creep and it's difficult to see just what the Germans could get out of it in practical terms if you're bent on european conquest.

Pearl Harbour was an opportunity for Hitler to keep the US out of the war.  He could have denounced Japanese aggression, halted the U-boat war and run a sympathy campaign by adverts in US newspapers.  Would have presented Roosevelt with a huge problem of US public opinion which would have meant a "Japan first" policy in the US.  

 

It simply never happened and with the distain Hitler held for the capabilities of the US was never likely to either.  As to Spain; Franco was a much more cautious leader than Hitler envisioned.  Victory in the Spanish civil war gave Franco all he wanted.  Hitler actually travelled to see Petain and Franco in October 1940 to try and enlist their help in a military coalition.  Franco and his foreign minister would have none of it.  The meeting at the Spanish-Franco border broke up with Hitler famously remarking he would "rather have three or four teeth extracted than go through that again"! 

[unreasonable]

Not sure about your interpretation of the Hendaye Hitler-Franco meeting. My recollection (not of the meeting!) is more that Franco's conditions for joining the Axis were considered to be absurdly out of proportion to the benefits to Germany, especially since by that time (late 1940) Hitler was already thinking that the UK could not be forced to sue for peace easily and was going to invade the USSR anyway.

 

What the Germans could have got out of the middle east was oil - which was their Achilles heel and did for them in the end. They did not need to conquer and hold the population in thrall they just needed to offer self government to the Arabs and the guerillas would have been on their side helping to kick the British out.

 

I do not know if my plan would have worked, it is still completely dependent on the attitude of the US, but I think it had a better chance of success than Hitler's "declare war on everyone and enslave them all without full mobilization" plan. Then again "enslave everyone" was really Hitler's desired end just as much as it was a means. But if Hitler was knocked off and the Army was in charge again, who knows?

 

It would make a good wargame though!

[DD_Arthur]

Not sure about your interpretation of the Hendaye Hitler-Franco meeting. My recollection (not of the meeting!) is more that Franco's conditions for joining the Axis were considered to be absurdly out of proportion to the benefits to Germany, especially since by that time (late 1940) Hitler was already thinking that the UK could not be forced to sue for peace easily and was going to invade the USSR anyway.

 

 

 

Franco made absurd demands knowing Hitler would reject them and was thus able to pay mere lip-service to Germany rather than join them in a rush to oblivion.  There was nothing out east that Franco in Spain could possibly need or want.  Ineresting that Hitler was compelled to travel to see Franco as the Spanish refused to come to Berlin

 

Oh bugger!  Got to take the kids to see the Lego movie now.....groan.

Edited February 21, 2014 by arthursmedley

[Finkeren]

What the Germans could have got out of the middle east was oil - which was their Achilles heel and did for them in the end. They did not need to conquer and hold the population in thrall they just needed to offer self government to the Arabs and the guerillas would have been on their side helping to kick the British out.

 

While the Germans would propably have found some Allies in Palestine and other places in the Levant, it is far from certain, that they would've had an easy time, and could just leave the area to itself (provided they managed to conquer it in the first place) There's a huge range of whats, ifs and buts in this scenario:

 

What about Turkey? While they did sign a non-agression pact with Germany in 1941, republican Turkey had always had the tightest bonds with the Allies, particularly the USSR, and weren't too happy about the former Allies of the Ottoman Empire in WW1. The Turkish army was/is not be trifled with, and could have meant a whole heap of trouble for the Germans, if they had cast their lot with the Allies.

 

How exactly was Germany to get hold of the precious oil? The far majority of oil wells at the time were placed closer to the Indian Ocean than the Mediterranean. Germany possessed no fleet of large oil tankers, and besides the British still ruled the oceans outside of "Mare Nostrum". Building pipelines over land might be cheaper and easier, but they are notoriously vulnerable and would require the willful participation of Turkey to get the oil to Europe, and it would still take the lines far too close to the USSR. Remember, that in your scenario, the Germans go on the defensive in the East in early 1942, meaning that the USSR still controls all of Caucasus and are unchallenged masters of the Black Sea. Disrupting the flow of oil through Turkey would have been extremely easy.

 

Even if the Germans found some Arab allies, there was another enemy in the region: Iran. The UK and the USSR had invaded Iran in august 1941 (pretty much the only large scale joint UK/USSR operation ever) and effectively controlled the country. The Iranian border is damn close to some of the richest oil fields in Mesopotamia. Do you really think the Germans would just be allowed to keep the oil without significant defenses, which still propably wouldn't hold under a combined Soviet and British attack?

 

As I said, it's a damn interesting scenario (someone really should make a game out of this) but I still can't see the Germans coming out on top. If you think the Wehrmacht was overstretched in Russia, that's nothing compared to, what they would be in this scenario.  

Edited February 21, 2014 by Finkeren

[Gort]

It was over the instant Germany bombed Pearl Harbor -

 

http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=V8lT1o0sDwI

 

Arguing over the rest is a waste of time.

[79_vRAF_Friendly_flyer]

By 1942m Germany's problem was that Hitler had managed to make an enemy out of almost all the mjor players on the international scene. From there on, as most of you have said, the war was lost. The question is: Would it have been possible to reach any of his strategic goals without getting the Western Allies into the war?

 

In science, when you can't find a way to answer a question satisfyingly, you can try to ask a related question that can be answered, and see if that answer can shed light on the original problem. So, what would it have taken for Germany to actually win WWII?

 

I guess we all agree a two-front war would sooner or later lead to German defeat. Could that have been avoided? Could Hitler have reached his goal of humiliating France without drawing the UK/US into the war or could Germany have invaded the Soviet to create Lebensraum in the East without setting off the Western/Soviet alliance?

Edited February 21, 2014 by 79_vRAF_Friendly_flyer

[unreasonable]

It was over the instant Germany bombed Pearl Harbor -

 

http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=V8lT1o0sDwI

 

Arguing over the rest is a waste of time.

 

Assume the position!

[Kublai]

Interesting discussion and more so in the context of IL2 BoS game forum for the fact that before IL2, I knew very little about the Eastern front other than its reference in Hogan's Heroes and it was to be avoided at all cost by any German soldier soldier who did not have balls of steel. But thanks to IL2 and the interest it has sparked in the Eastern Front War it is evident that the Russia was the main reason for the Nazi losing the war.

 

Hitler was a terrible general and made stupendous errors but was either a brilliant strategist or very luck gambler up to 1942. His biggest blunder pre 1942 and wholly unexpected was the declaration of war by GB and France over his invasion of Poland. He really did not want to fight the Brits and from all accounts I have read was rather fond of them.

 

The Western front was really just a sideshow for the Nazi and the vast majority of military assets were expended on the Russian Front. "Strategic bombing" was a lark. Fact is as "Strategic bombing" ramped up - day and night round the clock bombing, German war production increased. Because of the very high lost rate of daytime bombing for the Brits they switch to night bombing. They couldn't hit their targets in the day, what makes you think they could hit it in the dark? American daylight bombing was not much more accurate. The policy then became bombing to "break the will to resist" in other words terror bombing - bombing of cities - kill enough of their civilian and they will rise up against their leadership. The Blitz did not break the will of the Brits, it anything it steeled it, don't know why Bomber Command thought it would be different with the Germans. Hitler was completely indifferent to the suffering of his people in any case. In the end despite the massive tonnage of bombs dropped and the devastation of cities like Hamburg, Dresden, Berlin, it was the Red army's advance into Berlin that forced the final defeat of the Nazi. The allied effort was helpful but ultimately it was the Russian sledgehammer that defeated the Nazis.

[LLv44_Mprhead]

 "Strategic bombing" was a lark. Fact is as "Strategic bombing" ramped up - day and night round the clock bombing, German war production increased.

 

Strategic goal of bombing campaing during 1944 was to kill Luftwaffe, thus guaranteening allied air superiority in Europe for invasion. And that it did.

 

 

The policy then became bombing to "break the will to resist" in other words terror bombing - bombing of cities - kill enough of their civilian and they will rise up against their leadership. The Blitz did not break the will of the Brits, it anything it steeled it, don't know why Bomber Command thought it would be different with the Germans.

 

One could easily think that Bomber Command had better knowledge about effect of the Blitz than most people in here. Anyway, the assumption that bombing campaign, if anything, steeled the Germans, is more or less based on German propaganda during the war. For example Ian Kershaw argues in his book that British bombing came suprisingly close to actually break the back of Germany and caused serious problems for Nazi regime with severe impact on morale.

 

Anyway it's way too simplistic to say that this or that caused Germany to lost the war. One can argue for example that without operation Torch Germany would have more resourses in Eastern Front and it would have been wnough to save Stalingrad, thus breaking the soviet morale by convincing them that Germans can't be won. So it's because of Torch Germany lost. And there are countless other examples like that. Point is that you can't single out any one reason.

[DD_Crash]

Another thought about German production is how much would have been made if the bombing hadnt happened.

[DD_Arthur]

Another thought about German production is how much would have been made if the bombing hadnt happened.

 

Another thought is how much more we could have made if we hadn't devoted a million of our best and brightest to put bomber command into the air?

 More resources were put into Bomber Command than the whole of the British army - something like 20% of Britain's wartime economy was spent on making the rubble bounce.

 

How many Shermans did it take to knock out a Panther?  About five.

 

Whatever the Eighth Airforce were doing against the Luftwaffe in '44 for the RAF under Harris it was always against cities.

[76SQN-FatherTed]

There is also the effect on the morale of the British civilians and military of the RAF's bombing campaign.  In the early stages of the war it was the only real way for Britain to hit back at Germany.  I imagine the campaign was maintained as much for political/propaganda purposes as for strategic ones.

[Emgy]

 

Another thought is how much more we could have made if we hadn't devoted a million of our best and brightest to put bomber command into the air?

 More resources were put into Bomber Command than the whole of the British army - something like 20% of Britain's wartime economy was spent on making the rubble bounce.

 

Arthur or anyone else, do you know if there was significant internal debate about resource allocation for the services?

 

Did Churchill etc consider using most of those resources for, say, the British Army to win the North African campaign ASAP? And later on, even deploying to Russia, I've read about plans for this.

Or for the RN to blockade main axis ports?

Or were the bombers always going to be their favoured bet?

 

I recall reading about RN vs RAF tribalism in regards to TSR.2 and CVA-01 being shut down, but the 60's was of course a different era.

Edited February 24, 2014 by Calvamos

[No601_Prangster]

The German lost because of their uniforms:

 

Edited February 24, 2014 by No601_Prangster

[Bladderburst]

Well... my 2 cents on that whole war thing... this is ramblings from an armchair historian, nothing more.

From the pile of stuff I've red, it seems that the war in europe is a big blunder made by an amateur leader.

Some sources cite the east territories as the colonial adventure of Hitler. He saw the Slavs as the French saw the Africans. So that's a nice motive for war.

However he got into war with Britain, which he admired and with which he never wanted war. What I think is that his initial ruthless diplomatic blunders took him into a war he was not ready and did not want. He began with Austria, fair enough, the world did not want a war and Austrians nearly are Germans. Then the Sudentenland (by the way, how it was done is shameful, the allies were as much to blame for what came next) and then the whole country! The world did not react (but the allies became distrustful) and I guess he thought he could push his luck with Danzig because his neighbors were spineless. Stupid. 

So there you go, Germany unprepared (no navy against britain, bravo) in a big european conflict. So next it went pretty well. France was totally unprepared for the new type of war and Britain was actually prepared against a potential but unprobable conflict against France (I've red this in some papers about the development in air doctrines interwar, as weird as it seems, at the time they thought Germany was finished for good, so their only threat was France), not to defend it. Then this dragged on during the battle of Britain, oddly it seems the Germans did not see this as a defeat, in fact it was more of a propaganda victory for churchill.

Why Russia then?

The argument of colonial adventure or even war for genocide comes often. Maybe with a war won in the west this would be true. But Hitler himself wrote in Mein Kampf apparently (did not read this, it would get me too angry) that war on two fronts was an awful idea (war souvenirs of a WWI corporal probably). I've red that it was a preemptive strike. The Germans did not trust the Russians and they wanted to hit them first. In Hitler was my friend (Hoffman's bio) the author says that is what Hitler told him. I've red this in other sources, mostly german. Another source said that in deed Stalin was planning to attack eventually after the Germans would have exhausted themselves against the British, that's why he did allow the molotov-ribbentrop pact, to remove the buffer state between the two countries. Was Hitler thinking the same? No, I don't think so, why would he allow Stalin to invade Finland (one of the clause of the pact), his future ally?

The rest is just an atrocious meat grinder, fate unfolding, from awful to worst for our fuehrer on amphetamines.

So, Hitler's error? Getting into that war. With more years Germany could have built a better army and even maybe gain Danzig without war. War in 1939? Never could have won.

I'm done rambling.

[Blooddawn1942]

I take it for grantet, that "Barbarossa" was a preemptive strike. The red army was gathered in an offensive assemnly near the Border. Vast ammount of troops and aircraft in thousands, wingtip to wingtip like on display on the airfields near the border.

Thaty why Barbarossa could strike so fast and deep into soviet territory.

 

If the red army and airforce were assembled in a defenisive way, Barbarossa would have been stuck just like "Zitadelle" in 1943...

edit: sorry for typos. Bloody little phone and too fast indexfinger.

;-)

[Bladderburst]

I take it for grantet, that "Barbarossa" was a preemptive strike. The red army was gathered in an offensive assemnly near the Border. Vast ammount of troops and aircraft in thousands, wingtip to wingtip like on display on the airfields near the border.

Thaty why Barbarossa could strike so fast and deep into soviet territory.

 

If the red army and airforce were assembled in a defenisive way, Barbarossa would have been stuck just like "Zitadelle" in 1943...

edit: sorry for typos. Bloody little phone and too fast indexfinger.

;-)

That's what I think too, but this ain't clear yet, it needs more evidence to be considered as a fact I think. If you think of a logical course of action at this point in the conflict, it's the only explanation however.

[Bladderburst]

Another problem of the Germans which basically prevented them from winning (if it was possible at all) was its leadership:

1) Hitler was a lazy leader who slept all day and took vague decisions. His entourage listened to his ramblings and took decisions to suck up promotions and then said that it was an order of the fuehrer. One of the reason for this behavior of Hitler seems to be his personal doctor, Morell, who gave him several injections of wonder cocktails. It appears that these contained several drugs such as amphetamines. So basically Hitler was high most of the day.

2) The nazi's racist doctrines antagonized nearly all populations that they occupied. They could have recruited massively from the Ukrainians and Russians to fight the communists if they did not treat them like vermin.

 

3)The nazi's economic management was relying more on plunder than on effective economic measures. This german revival of 1936 under the nazis was mostly funded by loans. If the war didn't break out, the German economic situation would have got to a catastrophic point pretty fast. Its workforce was also dependent on slave labor. The nazis also liked giant projects and lost a lot on these white elephants.

4) Ethnic cleansing is not a good idea. It's even worst while you're stuck in a conflict for years.

 

So basically, under a better management, it could have got better. Also under a better management, Germany would not have got into a war in the first place.

[Kublai]

Another thought about German production is how much would have been made if the bombing hadnt happened.

 

Really probably not much as RAF was conducting night bombing missions. Targets were city centre not military or industrial complexes. Even the 8th AF switch target priority to city centre by late 44 and strategic bombing in effect became effort to break morale of the enemy.

[Finkeren]

The Nazis lost because - in the end - evil will lose --- always ... 

 

Yes. That's why the Native Americans won in the end against the colonists, who were trying to exterminate them...

 

That's why the pacifist and egalitarian Cathars prevailed against the onslaught of Catholic crusaders bent on their destruction...

 

That's why things are just getting better and better in Afghanistan with each decade of war...

 

Oh wait...

[Bladderburst]

The Nazis lost because - in the end - evil will lose --- always ... 

 

Germans were not more evil than the other protagonists of this war, sadly.

[Rama]

I suppose Sturmkraehe post was just a joke.

 

Please, leave the moral stuff in the cloakroom.... or the thread will quickly derail and I will be obliged to lock it.

[Blooddawn1942]

Better don't talk of amphetamines.

An pill called "Pervitin", which in fact was an amphetamin, was absolutely common in the german army, airforce and even in the society. Even before the war.

So Hitler is no exception in having consumed what we would call today a drug.

[Finkeren]

I suppose Sturmkraehe post was just a joke.

 

Please, leave the moral stuff in the cloakroom.... or the thread will quickly derail and I will be obliged to lock it.

I suppose you're right, I'll take it easy then.

 

It's just, that some people really do suffer from that delusion.

[J2_Trupobaw]

I think Hitlers original plan of for the war might go along these lines:

1. Germany and Soviet Union invade and divide between themselves Poland, Baltic states and Finland. The England and France issue harshly worded diplomatic notes but don't take action. Hungaria, Romania and Bulgaria join anti-comintern pact.
2. Mussolini does nothing stupid.
3. Germany invades Soviet Union; western democracies give up Polish cause and distance themselves from what clearly is conflict of two aggressive totalitarian states. Germany is unburdened by occupation of France, Netherlands, Denmark, Belgium, Norway, Yugoslavia and Greece, unengaged in Africa and has not gone through Battle for Britain. Soviets, on the other hand, receive no lend-lease war material.    
4. Japan does not bring US in until German/Soviet conflict is resolved; the victorious Germans (or Soviets) dominate lands that historically made Warsaw Pact (in case of German victory, except asiatic parts of Soviet union that are left to collapse). Western democracies either start seriously arming themselves, or go further into isolation; either way they (and the democracy) are becoming relic of XIX century. 
5. Western democracies are woken up from isolation by Japanese attack on US and their domains in Pacific. If conflict with Japan leaves them exposed, winner of German/Soviet war may yet move against them in Europe...
6. Nuclear weapons are not possible. 

i think it sums up everything that went wrong for Hitler, too . 

Edited February 27, 2014 by Trupobaw

[Finkeren]

6. Nuclear weapons are not possible. 

 

I sort of agree with most of your post, but this one I don't think is right. By 1945 nuclear weapons were, at best, a "war ender", not a "war winner". Even without nuclear weapons, Germany had roughly half of all residential buildings in the entire country destroyed, and it still didn't bring an end to the war.

 

It took almost a decade of development and setting up a nuclear infrastructure to make nuclear weapons the major strategic concern globally.

[Blooddawn1942]

Lucky enough that the US Airforce didn't need to drop an atombomb on Manheim. The war was over in Europe when Tallboy and Fatman were ready for service...

[Bladderburst]

Better don't talk of amphetamines.

An pill called "Pervitin", which in fact was an amphetamin, was absolutely common in the german army, airforce and even in the society. Even before the war.

So Hitler is no exception in having consumed what we would call today a drug.

It's not because it was common that it was good. Of course the German army took amphetamines, even the americans, it was the wonder drug of the 40s. The negative effects were not well understood at that time, so yes, Hitler took those and it probably impaired it's judgement. Even Elvis got hooked during his service. His injections contained much more than amphetamines however.

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theodor_Morell

 

Taken from there:

 

"Morell apparently never told Hitler (or anyone else) what he was administering, other than to say that the preparations contained various vitamins and "natural" ingredients, though this account is discredited, as Hitler knew what was being administered.^{[citation needed]} Some ingredients were later confirmed by doctors who had been shown pills by Hitler while temporarily treating him.^{[citation needed]} A few of the preparations (such as Glyconorm, a tonic popular in Switzerland for fighting infections) contained rendered forms of animal tissues such as placenta, cardiac muscle, liver, and bull testicles. During his interrogation after the war, Morell claimed another doctor had prescribed cocaine to Hitler, and at least one other doctor^[who?] is known to have administered it through eyedrops after he requested it in the hours following an almost successful assassination attempt on 20 July 1944.^{[citation needed]} Cocaine was routinely used for medical purposes in Germany during that time, but Morell is said to have increased the dosage tenfold; nonetheless, the concentration was still weak, as the eyedrops were only 1% cocaine.^{[citation needed]} Overuse of cocaine eyedrops has been associated with psychotic behavior, hypertension and other symptoms; given the weak dosage, it is more likely they were caused by methamphetamine, of which these are also common symptoms."

 

On the subject I'd recommend the book the Medical Casebook of Adolf Hitler if you are interested. I would not say to take his addiction to drugs as an absolute explanation for his behavior but it's an interesting chapter.

[Blooddawn1942]

It's not because it was common that it was good. Of course the German army took amphetamines, even the americans, it was the wonder drug of the 40s. The negative effects were not well understood at that time, so yes, Hitler took those and it probably impaired it's judgement. Even Elvis got hooked during his service. His injections contained much more than amphetamines however.

 

 

That is what I wanted to express.  Pervitin was of course an amphetamin and it was so widely used because they didn´t understood the ancillary effect and risks of it. You are totally right in this point.

You may have misunderstood my statement.

[Bladderburst]

That is what I wanted to express.  Pervitin was of course an amphetamin and it was so widely used because they didn´t understood the ancillary effect and risks of it. You are totally right in this point.

You may have misunderstood my statement.

No problem!

[Brano]

Oh poor Russian winter.Why do you blame her for defeat of germans? And at very same place Battle of Britain.No.It was Channel.Blame it,that it is there for thousands of years in same manner as Russian winter in Russia

[Bladderburst]

I agree. Calling Hitler crazy is just a sort of either

- reassuring oneself ("I am not crazy so I will never be like Hitler")

- rejecting the idea that the degre of Nazi crime would be possible elsewhere too

- rejecting the idea that sane people can be that evil.

 

To be honest, I think Hitler was perfectly sane and also capable of reason but unfortunately with extremely radical inhuman ideas ...

Hitler wasn't evil or insane...

 

However he had some skeletons in the closet, he had issues. I'd suggest to read the psychological evaluation that the allies did during the war. Someone would tend to label it as propaganda but in defense I'd say that the document was never intended to be public and that the predictions that it made were somewhat accurate.

 

But as far as the question, who has the potential to commit crimes against humanity? The sad answer is everyone.

[Bladderburst]

Your last sentence is - unfortunately - true as far as I see it.

 

HItler might have had some psychological issues but again I say that 99% of humanity also have more or less severe issues in this categoriy ...

 

One good read is Genocide a comprehensive introduction by Adam Jones. The sad conclusion that you get from such a book is that it was always there and that everybody did it at some point. There was a little map in the book pointing every genocide that ever happened and there wasn't a single place that did not do it at some point in its history.

[Kublai]

Strategic goal of bombing campaing during 1944 was to kill Luftwaffe, thus guaranteening allied air superiority in Europe for invasion. And that it did.

 

 

 

 

One could easily think that Bomber Command had better knowledge about effect of the Blitz than most people in here. Anyway, the assumption that bombing campaign, if anything, steeled the Germans, is more or less based on German propaganda during the war. For example Ian Kershaw argues in his book that British bombing came suprisingly close to actually break the back of Germany and caused serious problems for Nazi regime with severe impact on morale.

 

Anyway it's way too simplistic to say that this or that caused Germany to lost the war. One can argue for example that without operation Torch Germany would have more resourses in Eastern Front and it would have been wnough to save Stalingrad, thus breaking the soviet morale by convincing them that Germans can't be won. So it's because of Torch Germany lost. And there are countless other examples like that. Point is that you can't single out any one reason.

Strategic goal of bombing campaing during 1944 was to kill Luftwaffe, thus guaranteening allied air superiority in Europe for invasion. And that it did.

 

 

 

 

One could easily think that Bomber Command had better knowledge about effect of the Blitz than most people in here. Anyway, the assumption that bombing campaign, if anything, steeled the Germans, is more or less based on German propaganda during the war. For example Ian Kershaw argues in his book that British bombing came suprisingly close to actually break the back of Germany and caused serious problems for Nazi regime with severe impact on morale.

 

Anyway it's way too simplistic to say that this or that caused Germany to lost the war. One can argue for example that without operation Torch Germany would have more resourses in Eastern Front and it would have been wnough to save Stalingrad, thus breaking the soviet morale by convincing them that Germans can't be won. So it's because of Torch Germany lost. And there are countless other examples like that. Point is that you can't single out any one reason.

Do you have any sources that state strategic goal of Bomber Command was to kill Luffwaffe? Fact was BC was incurring horrendous losses even with night bombing raids on cities. It was given a respite when allied command took over the force from Harris to prep France for the invasion. BC squadrons were then used to bomb communication links to western France and Western and Northern Germany as diversions. Only when used in this tactical nature were BC squadrons to prove really useful for the allied war effort. Wasn't the lesson learned in BOB that to win air superiors you must attack fighter bases and early warning systems. Wasn't BOB lost because strategy changed to bombing British cities?

 

Once Harris got his squadrons back one of first missions was Dresden to prove the efficiency and merit of HIS strategy to win the war by bombing the will out of the enemy by destroying their cities. He did a good job at Dresden a lesson that the USAF was to put to strategic effect in B29 firebombing of Japan. Harris and BC was the only British military arm not to get a campaign medal at the end of the war. Seems even Harris's contemporaries questioned the merits of his strategy.

 

The logical insanity of "Strategic Bombing" was to morph into the Cold War MAD doctrine - the mutual aiming of nuclear arsenals at each other's cities and thus assure mutual assured destruction.

 

In the climate of totalitarian Nazi Germany where the main victims of strategic bombing were women children and the elderly, it is very hard to believe their voice would be considered. Hitler by 1945 did not care at all about Germany or it's people thus his order of March 19 to the military to destroy everything in Germany - "military, industrial, transportation and communication installations as well as all stores in Germany..in order to prevent them from falling intact into hands of enemy" p525 W Shirer - The Rise and Fall...

Had these orders been carried out Germany at war end would have been many more times screwed. These orders would have achieved what 5 years of strategic bombing could not do - bring Germany back to the dark ages.

[Sokol1]

Do you have any sources that state strategic goal of Bomber Command was to kill Luffwaffe?

 

Bomber Command strategy is kill German people (in night raids) - the terror bombing.

Kill the Luftwaffe is USAAF strategy, and they kill - in the air, in the landing, in the fabrics... and slow down/halt the necessary fuel production for Luftwaffe.

 

Sokol1

[MiloMorai]

You do know Kublai that there was to be 4 raids on Dresden. The first was to be the USAAF 8th AF but was scrub do to weather. The second USAAF 8th AF mission to Dresden was flown.