Could have Germany won?

[Michael Emrys]

Originally posted by Alech:

</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />Originally posted by Michael Emrys:

</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />Originally posted by Alech:

What if Germany DOW Japan after Pearl, instead of DOW'ing America?

Are you serious? What would be the point of that?

:confused:

Michael </font>

[i.i.koshkin]

Originally posted by Fly Pusher:

Maybe more critically, what if Spain (whos government owed Germany more than a few favours from the civil war) had been pressured into retaking Gibralter and aggressively defending the straights (shore batteries, torpedo boats and minefields etc).

Loss of Gibralter, which would hardly be defensible against a determined assault, would have closed the entrance to the med for the British. The RN would have had to abandon / evacuate Malter, Palastine and Egypt and make a break for it. Probably at great loss. Resupply of the allied forces in N. Africa would have ended while the forces defending Rommels supply lines would have been released for offensive missions.

When you think about it its amazing that it didnt happen. It would have completely changed the balance of power in the med. Access to oil would be assured, an allied army would have been captured and a gateway to the underbelly of Stalins Russian opened up.

And all for a few square miles of rock.

Spain entering the war was a non-starter for a variety of reasons. In no particular order:

Economically, Spain was a mess. She was not producing enough food and was getting food from ...you guessed it, the allies.

The second that Spain attacked the allies, she would have lost her foreign possessions since she had no way to defend them.

The Spanish only had enough oil/supplies for an extremely limited amount of time and then Germany would have had to provide the remaining supplies.

A coup against the government was a real possibility if Spain went back to war. The country was in very poor shape and sending the troops out was hardly in the best interest of Franco.

In any case the British were already sending a large amount of their supplies around Africa, so closing Gilbralter would hardly automatically cost Britian Africa.

[Michael Emrys]

Very good reply. There's a man who's actually done some reading and thinking.

Michael

[Shosties]

Originally posted by Michael Emrys:

Very good reply. There's a man who's actually done some reading and thinking.

From a 14,000-er no less!

Anyway, just to chime in with my $0.02, this is indeed a big non-starter as, furthermore, Adm. Canaris was feeding the Spainards with the straight dope: that Hitler's vaunted war machine lacked the economic moxie behind it needed for staying power and that the mind behind it all was erratic.

Hitler definately tried to tempt Franco into becoming a full-fleged Axis flunky, but Franco shrewdly responded with a list of demands and conditions so long that Hitler was to remark he'd rather visit the dentist than Franco ever again!

[spartan1]

Definetely yes they could have won the war since:

- no streching in two many fronts

- control of oil resources

- new rute for advance in USSR (if after winning attacked Caucasus from South and from West)

- straggle Britain from colonies

[CombinedArms]

Originally posted by Shosties4th:

Hitler definately tried to tempt Franco into becoming a full-fleged Axis flunky, but Franco shrewdly responded with a list of demands and conditions so long that Hitler was to remark he'd rather visit the dentist than Franco ever again!

Franco was shrewder than Mussolini--that's for sure. While Mussolini plunged enthusiastically into a war that ultimately led to Italy's defeat and his own personal doom, Franco lived to a ripe old age, only to be declared "really dead" in a long series of Saturday Night Live episodes of "Weekend Update." I guess he was the last of the "great" western European dictators, and SNL was appropriately celebrating his demise.

[Wisbech_lad]

Quite, the Spanish civil war wasn't long over. Franco (I guess) feared unrest at home. Wasn't a high proportion of the French Resistance actually refugees from Spain?

Re: delaying the war til 48-50. The German regime was inherently unstable (internal party pogroms against SA as well as external opponents, continual plots and assassination attempts on Hitler) What makes you think Hitler can even stay in power, without a war to justify high levels of internal repression?

At some point, one of his eternally feuding subordinates would have felt strong enough to get rid of the Austrian...

[Hinkar]

Originally posted by FM Paul Heinrik:

Russia-Germany conflict was inevitable due to Romania, Poland, Bulgaria, and Finland. Germany had to knock out Russia before Russia gained enough confidence to take more areas in the Balklands.

...

I don't buy it that the Russia-Germany conflict was inevitable in the short term.

The Russians signed a non-aggression pact when they could've had France and the UK as allies and when the Germans would've been fighting a 2-front war. I find it impossibe to believe that they would then jump into war with Germany when Germany was trumphant in Europe, the vaulted French Army (and it was thought the premier European army in the 30s) had been routed so quickly, and the German army was "unemployed". It was obvious that the main beneficiary would have been the UK, and he was hardly going to risk all that he had built to help out the British.

Hitler wasn't a fool. He'd put his principles on the back burner when he signed the non-aggression pact. He'd acquiesced to wishes of those in the Nazi party (Ribbentrop but many others) who wished for the Soviet Union to join the Axis, and an offer was made in Oct 1940 (during an RAF air-raid of all times!!!). It was against his grain of course, but he still did it. He tried to get the USSR onside. Many in the West thought it was inevitable at the time too, which is why the UK and French drew up their plans to attack Baku etc. Russia wished to remain neutral. So Hitler decided to remove it from the game before the US entered. Yes, Mein Kampf mentioned land in the East. But it also mentioned avoiding a two front war.

Molotov's demeure when he meet Hitler, and Stalin's antagonising demands didn't help (the Danube Conference and demands on Finland) but Stalin's refusal to believe that the Germans were going to attack (he thought it was British propaganda), his nervious breakdown and dissapperance for 3 days after the outbreak of war, seem to indicate he didn't expect war (never mind his comment at the outbreak: "Lenin founded our state, and we've f**ked it up").

The point of all this is that if Hitler had known what he was getting into, he could've avoided the Russian war in the short term. Long enough to capture the middle east and bring the UK to the negotiating table before the entry of America (at the time, many though that Turkey would be his next target, and through it, the middle east, that he would bully it into letting him have military access)... Looking at the world of April 41, with Germans supreme in the Balkans and all over Europe, having routed the British whenever they fought them, many thought the war was virtually over.

The day the US entered the war, Germany lost.

Good book on pre-Barbarossa German-Russian relations is "Grand Delusions: Stalin and the German invasion of Russia" -- written by the way as a refutation of the idea floating around that Stalin was going to attack Germany in 1941...

By the by, if the Germans had tried to take Moscow instead of switching South to take Kiev it might have made no difference, but it is possible that Stalin might have decided to stay in Moscow like he did in Oct and like Hitler did in Berlin. His death and the loss of Moscow MIGHT have been enough for the whole "edifice will come tumbling down." Maybe mights ifs...