Just a thought...

[Londoner]

Many authors seem to view a particular event in WW2 as THE decisive turning point. For instance, Atlantic war enthusiasts (and others for that matter) argue that Ultra was the key factor in the German defeat.

Other historians argue, the Battle of Britian was the defining moment, giving the US a future base of operations in the ETO.

Then there's the Russian commentators. I got the oppurtunity to talk to Anthony Beevor after a guest lecture on his book Stalingrad, and I asked him this very question. He was adament that Stalingrad was THE determining variable, which marked the real turning point in WW2, and we could surely go on to name many other important events heralded by many historians.

I see WW2 as Hitler having a number of "lives" given his available resources, which he squandered one by one. There was obviously a "point of no return" after which Germany was doomed whatever she did, but this ARGUABLY came VERY late in the war (I would argue 1944).

Surely It doesn't nessasarily follow that the turning point (whatever you personally believe) be the most important factor.

For example, what relevance would Stalingrad or the Battle of Britain of had if the Geramn Navy had been more careful with the Enigma codings, and continued to sink 7,000,000 tons of Allied shipping a year into 1943-5? There would have been no second front and no Russian resupply, therefore minimising their importance.

So to me, all the Allied victories are inter-related and mutually surportive, Hitler didn't lose the war with one bad desision, instead it was a combination of MANY bad calls.

Your thoughts?

[This message has been edited by Londoner (edited 06-11-2000).]

[kipanderson]

Hi,

I agree that there was no one event that was "the" turning point. My view is that the power of the Red Army in the second half of the war was the key factor. Recent books by David Glantz and others show what the casualty ratio was in that period and that the Soviets were of far higher "quality" than they are normally creditted with. Only 14.5% of total German army casualties resulted from the war against the Allies in NW Europe. 74% of their casualties were suffered on the Eastern Front and 2/3 of these in the last half of the war on the Eastern Front. German casualties against the Soviets in the last half of the war were three times higher than those they suffered against the Brits and the US over the same period.

All the best,

Kip.

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[Formerly Babra]

I doubt any single event could be said to be the turning point, but the series of events from October December 1942 taken together I think proved insurmountable for the Axis. Defeat at Alamein, Torch landings, loss of Guadalcanal, Stalingrad...

I would say Autumn '42 was surely the turning point.

[Guest MantaRay]

The turning point in the war wasn't the Battle of Britian, Staligrad, Market Garden, the Battle of the Bulge, or any other land based battle. The turning point was Pearl Harbor. We may not have even committed troops to the ETO if this event hadn't happened.

And the biggest reason after PH that Germany lost the war wasn't our troops as much as it was our Industrial might that cranked up full bore.

Ray

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When asked, "How many moves do you see ahead?", CAPABLANCA replied: "One move - the best one."

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[Murx]

Yeah, I submit to this - there is no real turning point. The last option - if at D-Day the SS-PzDivisions were activated and Overlord had failed (or the West Allied offensive in France had failed) - would have been the Fat Boy and that would have been the end. Only then Germany would have signed a peace treaty.

Thats my personal opinion.

murx

[von shrad]

Does'nt matter. Had the war continued I believe that the bomb would have hammered Germany.

[Guest aka PanzerLeader]

Yeah, I strongly agree. Hitler had many chances, first to decisively win the war(Battle Of Britain, SeaLion, Barbarossa), then, as he sqandered these first opportunities, to win a tactical victory(Blau), then, to impose a draw(Kursk, Normandy) and finally, to negotiate a honourable peace(Ardennes).

In fact when you think about ititsa miracle that Germany lost the war so decisively. It could have ended in a variety of ways, from one extreme to the other. Germany might have lost the war but only marginally so that the Nazi Party would still be in place there today...

[Lee]

Hitlers biggest mistake once the war started was invading Russia (remember

the old rule, Adolf; never fight a land war in asia ). It soaked up a vast

amount of Germany's resources. If Germany didn't have to worry about

Russia, they could have easily won in north africa and gotten oil in

the mideast. And forget about any invasion in France working.

Of course, maybe if Hitler wasn't a left wing nut that hated jews, Albert Einstein

wouldn't have left Germany and Hitler could have had the bomb at his disposal.

But that's another story.

[Maximus]

I agree with Babra and Manta Ray. The turning point/deciding factor was the Mediterranean victory and Naval/Amphibious victories in the Pacific in 1942 along with the shear industrial might of the United States.

For the argument concerning the victory at the Battle of Britian, the mainland invasion of Europe could have as easily come from Italy. The offensive could have circled around the Alps up into France or over to the Balkans. They would have taken longer, especially the Balkan way, but it could have been done.

The fact that the Russians came on strong certainly did help. I don't deny that.

The whole reason, in my opinion, that Germany lost the War is that it started so many "jobs" that they couldn't finish. ie. They didn't shore up the British Isles before invading Russia. They invaded Russia too late in the year. (Had they invaded in early spring, they may have captured Moscow by winter.) The Mediterranean theater is a little more complex. I don't really see a better way they could have done that. They just got their butts defeated in battle.

Of course, all this tends to happen when a country goes on a world-wide expansion kick. Finish one job before moving on to the next. And that's all I got to say about that!!! 'Cause Stone Cold said so!!!

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"The greatest risk...is not taking one."

[Guest Germanboy]

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by aka PanzerLeader:

Yeah, I strongly agree. Hitler had many chances, first to decisively win the war(Battle Of Britain, SeaLion, Barbarossa), then, as he sqandered these first opportunities, to win a tactical victory(Blau), then, to impose a draw(Kursk, Normandy) and finally, to negotiate a honourable peace(Ardennes).

In fact when you think about ititsa miracle that Germany lost the war so decisively. It could have ended in a variety of ways, from one extreme to the other. Germany might have lost the war but only marginally so that the Nazi Party would still be in place there today...<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Err, in 1943 at the Allied leader's conference in Casablance they demanded unconditional surrender. There never was a chance to get anything than that out of the war after 1943, for Germany. By the stage of the Normandy or Ardennes, even excellent fighting performance and winning these operations would not have helped the German regime. Nobody would have negotiated with Hitler, and most probably not with the Prussian generals and opposition politicians involved in the attempted coup d'etat. This demand for unconditional surrender, combined with the Morgenthau Plan is generally credited to keep the German soldier fighting despite the odds.

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Andreas

The powers of accurate perception are often called cynicism by those who do not possess them. (forgot who said it)

[thomasj]

There are really 2 very keys factors that lead the events to in favor of the ALLIES. The first would be the unrecoverable losses of the luftwaffe in the battle for Britan. Germany would have had proper air power to stop the allied air power that really broke their back, and this would raise the question if the allies would have been able to drop the bomb on Germany had it been prolonged because Germany was winning the race in research and developement on Jets, missles, tanks, and the BOMB. The lack of proper air power for Germany truley was the largest of the back breaking factors. FACT, germany would have won serveral battles if thier forces had any air support worth mentioning other than 2-4 planes. The allies would not have had thier success in bombing German factories and research centers, etc, etc.......you get the idea.

The second, which is purely my opinion, would be the creation of the second fron with Russia so soon and the poor seasonal timing it was launched. Creating a huge strain in the logistics of Germany when their air power was really not up to snuff. let's face the facts, Germany had a treaty with Russia and would have been able to completley concentrate on the western front until all objectives were accomplished, then and only then move on to the East.

To me and several people I have talked with concerning this issue, the largest single factor in the war was the unacceptable losses the luftwaffe took in the battle for Britan, had it not occured Geramny would have had Air superiority and that was the major trump factor for the allies through the war. Had they not been able to employe their planes as liberally as they had it would have most assuradly(sp?) been a completely different war.

[thomasj]

As a side note. Negotiations and surrender were completly trown out the window when Dresden was fire bombed, the shaken German army had a stronger than ever determination to fight the allies to the last and make them pay for what they had done. There are people today that will tell you that second to only the concentration camps, the fire bombing of Dresden was the largest atrocity ever commited during the war.

[OberGrupenStompinFeuhrer!]

I have to go along with London's idea of a series of "lives" that were squandered by Hitler one by one, until it was too late. However, there have been some interesting points raised in this thread and I'd like to toss my 2c into the ring.

I agree that the Bomb would probably have ended the war, if Overlord had failed. But Einstein wasn't the only one involved in making the Bomb, I believe the Germans had their scientists as well. I am not certain of the year (1943?) but the Brits mounted a Commando raid on a German heavy water production facility in Norway and destroyed the installation. This effort set back the German quest for the A-bomb by several years. Had the raid not been carried out, or failed, Hitler may well have had the Bomb available to him before the Americans did.

An argument could be developed that Mussolinin was responsible for the lose of one of Hitler's "lives". As Hitler was preparing for Operation Barbarossa in 1941, Mussolini invaded the Balkans and got his arse kicked (again). Hitler had to invade Greece and Crete to bail him out. This "side-show" effectively delayed the start of Barbarossa until there was not enough summer left to get the job done in Russia. But one could as easily argue that Germany would never have defeated the Russians, even with the capture of Moscow. Look at the map, Russia is *huge*.

End of 2c worth.

Ober

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"Them Yankees couldn't hit the broa..."

[OberGrupenStompinFeuhrer!]

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by thomasj:

There are people today that will tell you that second to only the concentration camps, the fire bombing of Dresden was the largest atrocity ever commited during the war. <HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

What was third, Coventry?

But I digress, this is a CM board.

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"Them Yankees couldn't hit the broa..."

[RobC]

The turning point in the war was the cracking of the German "Enigma" code and the development of radar anti-submarine tactics that led to the defeat of the U-boat fleet in mid '43. Without this, D-day would never have happened and the Germans might well have defeated Russia.

RobC

[Jager 7]

Quote

"The turning point in the war wasn't the Battle of Britian, Staligrad, Market Garden, the Battle of the Bulge, or any other land based battle. The turning point was Pearl Harbor. We may not have even committed troops to the ETO if this event hadn't happened"

I have to agree with you MantaRay. Without Pearl Harbor causing the U.S. to get whipped up into a war frenzy and getting onto an industrial war footing it is unlikely the Soviets would have been able to do what they did against the Germans when they did. Once the U.S. entered the war and began producing weapons, ammo, aircraft and tanks by the tens of thousands, Nazi Germany's as well as Japan's fate was sealed.

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When the situation is obscure....attack!

CGen. Heinz Guderian

[Epée]

Quote

"The turning point in the war wasn't the Battle of Britian, Staligrad, Market Garden, the Battle of the Bulge, or any other land based battle. The turning point was Pearl Harbor. We may not have even committed troops to the ETO if this event hadn't happened"

I have to disagree. I rally think that Germany would have lost the war even if the US had not intervened. I truly think that ]Russia would have won alone, it would just be a matter of taking more time to do it.

After Stalingrad, the german east front was on the defensive, and no matter what support Russia got from the allies, Russia would have pushed back Germany anyway.

Epée

[Midnight Warrior]

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>"The turning point in the war wasn't the Battle of Britian, Staligrad, Market Garden, the Battle of the Bulge, or any other land based battle. The turning point was Pearl Harbor. We may not have even committed troops to the ETO if this event hadn't happened <HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Churchill agrees with this view. In his history of WWII he cites America's entry in the war as the event that assured the salvation of Britain. Interestingly enough he cites the Nazi/Russian Non agreesion pack as the cause of WWII. As such he never shoewd much sysmpathy for Stalin's plea for a second front in that he thought that Stalin had gotten what he deserved by cozying up with the Nazi's to begin with. Even so no one can deny that the war in Russia had a critical role in the defeat of Nazi Germany.

As for Germany not finishing off Britain, Hitler thought that the U boats would do the trick so that the breaking of the Enigma code and the development of airborne radar (and those two British blokes that invented the Magnetron) played a decisive role in undermining Hitler's game plan to knock out Britain. Could Russia have won the war without the West? If the Germans had gone on the defensive and fallen back in '43 to more defendable positions it could have been a stalemate. I would think a prologned stalemate might have led to a negotiated peace between the Germans and a lone Russia. A stalemate would have been a win for Hitler in that he would still be sitting on all of most of Europe. In my opinion Allied victory was an uncomfortable close call with little margin for error (and in a close call everything tends to counts. And in particular good luck (or rather I believe, Divine Providence)played an awfully large role in many of Allied Operations from those Dauntless dive bombers catching Nagumo with his "pants down" at Midway to the Weather at D-Day and good fortune of the Enigma machine falling into Allied hands. On the other hand if the Western democracies had done their duty back in the 30's and had marched into the Rhineland when Hitlr occupied it and/or hadn't doubl crossed Austria and Chechoslavakia then the whole history of the world could have been different.

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March To The Sound Of The Guns

[Flix]

Well, everyone's talking about turning points. I submit that if we hadn't won at Midway, there would not even have been an "Operation Overlord". And if the Japanese hadn't diverted two of their carriers to the Solomons, we probably won't have won.

We would still have been fighting a two front war, but our western front would have been VERY close to home.

Many people neglect to acknowledge the Pacific theater as a positive or negative factor to the progress of our forces in Europe. Battleships, carriers, crusiers, destroys and other seagoing vessels cost a whole lot of money and stateside workforce to build and repair.

[Aacooper]

Regarding Germany and the bomb, Heisenberg said in 1942 that the US had a lead in nuclear research, even though Germany may have had one in the 30's (though they definitely weren't developing a bomb then!). In 1942, Europe had only a single cyclotron -- in Paris. Speer was shown a German-built cyclotron splitting an atom in 1944, but there was no chance of bomb development. The reason for that is Speer saw where the bomb program was going (nowhere) and authorized Germany's stock of uranium to be used for solid-core ammunition after imports of wolframite were cut off from Portugal.

Germany would have had to mobilize ALL of its technical, scientific, and financial resources to build a bomb. However, Hitler, the required patron of such an immense project, felt that nuclear physics was "Jewish physics". Remember too that the Nazis were too shortsighted to see the promise in jet fighters.

[Londoner]

Thanks for all your posts, alot of interesting points made.

[Mikester]

Let me state that I'm writing this very quickly and from memory, so some of my facts (or lack thereof) may not be totally correct.

In my view there were no real true turning points in the war. However, it is faily obvious as others have noted that Germany had the war to win or to lose in Russia.

1) As noted above, they invaded too late in 1941. Partly due to waiting for the weather to improve so that they wouldn't be slogging through the mud (the entire German concept of Blitzkrieg is built around speed among other things after all), and partly due to the Balkan's excursion which most likely definitely delayed the invasions even later than what the spring rains would have.

2) The Germans and their allies had one chance to conquer Russia and that was in 1941. After that, it would be too late, the Russians would pull their act together, activate more and more units, etc. So why did they fail in 1941?

a) While they had a plan of battle, it was perhaps, too generalized. And in my view, definitely too spread out. Russia is an enormous country and as you invade it from the west it opens up. There are more and more kilometers of front to cover for every kilometer you drove deeper into it. The only real chance Germany had in my opinion to overcome this was to make one concerted effort with a strategic schwerpunkt aimed at Moscow. As it was, they advanced on more or less of a broad front and while they made tremendous progress they eventually overworked and tired out there formations while they were bled at every turn, overstretched their supply lines, etc.

Due to Hitler's meddling after the invasion started, the plan wasn't followed anyway. For example, he diverted very important Panzer formations from Army Group Center (driving on Moscow) to Army Group South for several weeks because of problems with AGS's progress. There were various other shifts of units during the 1941 campaign that also caused problems of similar nature. Needless to say advancing on the broad front and then shifting units about from one "hot" area to the next didn't help where it counted which was taking Moscow. These delays proved costly in the end when the Soviet winter came into play.

c) The Russian hordes could not be overcome. Poorly led though they were, and sacrificed like lambs, there was almost no end to the number of men available to the Soviet army. In Dec. 1941 with most German units well below authorized strength, if not nearly totally bled white, the Soviets launched their first winter counterattacks because they had raised and brought in fresh units. While the Germans eventually brought in fresh units themselves, they could never keep up w/ the Soviets in this regard in the long run.

3) The Germans were not as well prepared as they thought they were. German tanks were inferior to the T-34 and some other Soviet tanks. While the Soviets didn't have as many of these available at the outbreak of the conflict, they did rapidly start to produce more. Much more quickly than the Germans managed to design (or at least finish designing) and deploy tanks such as the Tiger I and Panther. They were also not prepared for, or for that matter knew how to fight, in a true drawn out winter battle. The Soviets on the other hand were quite capable of doing so and proved it on any number of occasions.

4) The Germans were too overconfident. They had yet to lose a campaign in the war and had every reason to believe the backward Soviets would fall just like the others. They thought the Russians would simply fall over like a house of cards before them and that they could simply waltz into Moscow in a matter of a couple of months. Needless to say, they seriously underestimated their opponent.

5) Germany simply did not have the resources in terms of men, material, production capacity of everything from bullets to tanks, petrol, etc. to fight a prolonged war in Russia and have units tied down in guarding France and fighting in the Med. For this reason alone, as someone else stated above, I strongly feel that the Soviets would have beaten the Germans even if D-day landings had never happened in Normandy. In fact, I'd postulate that by the time they did happen, the Russians had for all intents and purposes already taken irrevocable control of the war on the eastern front.

Why do I say this? Look at what happened. Shortly after D-day in Normandy the Russians opened up a huge summer offensive and drove the Germans back in several key areas, surrounding or destoying whole divisions of irreplaceable tanks and men of the Wehrmacht. Retaking Kiev (or was it Minsk?) in the process, etc. They were already well on their way to driving the Germans back to where they'd started in 1941 by the time D-day rolled around. Make no mistake about it.

And if one thinks that America did much to help the Soviets in any real tangible terms that made a major impact I would be interested in the details of what we did. I know we sent some Sherman tanks over, food, ammo, and I know some aircraft were sent too. But think about it for a minute, how many of these American aircraft, or tanks, do you ever actually see in any photographs of Soviet hardware on the front? Or for that matter hear about in any first hand accounts of battle reports or in books. The answer is very few. So in my view, to think that the Americans "saved" the Soviets and helped them turn the tide on the Eastern front is bordering on almost being laughable. Heck, the Soviets had perhaps the best all around tank of the entire war in the T-34 and aircraft that could stand toe to toe with most anything that America produced. What did they need this stuff for anyways?

Granted, I'm sure what we sent the Soviets via Murmansk and whatever other routes were used helped (and maybe much more so than my understanding of the facts allows), but to think that Pearl Harbor turned the tide of the war in Europe is really stretching things in my view. Especially when it comes to the eastern front.

Think about it, the Russians fought pretty much alone against Germany for nealy 3 years from June 41 to June 44! Until June 1944, the Americans/English presence was only felt in a small way in my view in the side-show of the Med. Theatre. N. Africa really didn't mean much in the overall scheme of things (another of Mussilini's messes actually). Sicily was nothing but the doorway into Italy, and once in Italy the narrowness of the front and rugged terrain meant that it didn't take very many units to defend the area. Point is that not very much of Germany's resources were required in this area.

So in my view, by the time the Western Allies finally invade Normandy, in many respects the war was already over. The chance to win in 1941 in the east was long past. Germany had been bled white in terms of men, material, etc., on the eastern front in three years of fighting there and really had nothing to show for it (not to mention Anglo/American strategic bombing which I do feel did have a definite impact on the final outcome of the war). And when the Western front finally is opened in Normandy they then had a third active front to fight on and their fate was sealed.

Turning point? Hmmm. Pretty much isn't any one or two single turning points. Especially in the ETO. Pearly Harbor certainly wasn't. It was the beginning point of the battle in the Pacific, so by it's very definition cannot be a turning point there, while in Europe we have already seen above that the true impact of the American involvement there really came too late to be of much value in determining the final overall outcome.

Most pronounced turning point I can think of was the Battle of Midway in the Pacific campaign. That was the one single battle that all but broke the Japanese Navy'ss back. Like Germany, they couldn't really replace what they'd lost and stretched themselves out over thousands and thousands of miles of ocean. And in that one single battle they lost 4 of their key aircraft carrier assets that allowed them to project any sort of force over all those miles they'd conquered.

And if America's true might was observed anywhere, it was felt in the Pacific by Japan. While there were most definitely those that helped such as the British, Dutch, Australians, Chinese, etc., it was the enormous power of the American Navy, Army, Aircorps, and Marines that carried the day in the Pacific. Without these forces the Japanese would probably still control much of it today.

Wow. If that wasn't a huge bunch of rambling then I don't know what is. And no smilies either! Hope I didn't tick anyone off. Just thought I'd throw in my $1.98 worth.

Mikester out.

PS: Here's two good questions for you to think about:

1) What would have happened if the Germans had actually taken Moscow in 1941? Would Germany have really won in the east and "conquered" the Soviets, or would they (Soviets) simply have kept on fighting and eventually persevered anyways?

2) What language would most Europeans from the USSR to the Atlantic (less perhaps England) be speaking today if the Americans hadn't entered WWII?

Best guess, you got it, Russian.

[This message has been edited by Mikester (edited 06-12-2000).]

[Guest Zulu1]

In the best thing thing the Japanese could have done was bomb Pearl Harbour. Most of the Japanese code was broken so the US had the carriers safely out to sea. The attack showed the value of carrier air power for the navy. Sinking the battleships showed they were basically useless save for escort and shore bombardment.

The US started building carriers and the Pacific war was over for all intents and purposes. By 1945 the US had almost 100 carriers in service, i.e. they could put up 1500 to 2000 front line fighters if they wanted plus the equivalent number on bombers etc. Even if the Japanese had won at Midway, the end result would have been the same.

In the east, the big German mistake was attacking Russia. It took time, but once the Russians got rolling, the Germans were toast.

[scoop88]

Lots of interesting thoughts in these posts. Certainly the Soviets bore the brunt of the fighting, but their task was made much easier by the fact that the Germans had to divert a good deal of their strength to the West. Several hundred thousand German troops were fighting in Tunisia in late 1942 and early 1943; all were lost when they surrendered. The Germans had to pull a significant number of troops and panzers out of Kursk in early July 1943 to shore up Italy; and a number of good panzer divisions had to be stationed in France in early 1944 to meet the expected Allied invasion. Further, the Germans destroyed their precious reserves of tanks and men by throwing them at the Americans in the Ardennes in December 1944 instead of using these reserves in the East. How different would the war in the East had been if Germany had been able to concentrate all of its resources in Russia in 1943 and 1944? Or what if Hitler hadn't declared war on the U.S.? What if, what if, what if ... "The terrible ifs accumulate," as I think Churchill once said.

[Jager 7]

Mikester,

Man, that was a long post... Anyway, I think you underestimated the effects of American war materiel output on every aspect of the war. By bringing the U.S. into the war via Pearl Harbor America was able to focus on winning the war. That began by cranking up the industy at all levels. Check the figures on how much lend-lease was shipped to the Soviet Union and Britain before the U.S. ever put troops on the ground and then how much was still shipped after that time. Certainly it is possible the Soviets may have been able to defeat Hitler on their own given a few more years. After all, no one has invaded Mother Russia and gotten away with it.

By entering the war in Europe and North Africa on the ground and in the air the U.S. was only continuing something that had been begun previously. The deciding factor was still the industrial might of America being divied up among the allies.

In the Pacific the American troops began in '42 but it was still a "side show" compared to the effort that was focused on Europe.

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When the situation is obscure....attack!

CGen. Heinz Guderian