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Why the Allies won


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JJ I agree with your statements, actually I enjoy reading your posts, they are well written. Unlike myself the Quebecois, hehe.

My point is that even had Hitler made none of his stupid mistakes, the Germans still would have lost. USA and Russia by themselves were outproducing them in every area (food, energy, materials, manpower, etc...).

Could Germany have managed some type of Armistice? I'm guessing that if Hitler had not been involved in any military decision then Germany could have probably won an armistice in late 45. That's just my point of view of the best possible outcome for the Germans, since it never happened, we'll play games like this one to find out smile.gif .

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Thank you, Blashy, and I enjoy reading yours and those of your fellow Quebecois as well -- it's always good to see things from a different view.

I think most of the time we're looking at these issues with basically the same opinions but somewhere along the line we each go off into our own tangent and don't realize that, basically, we're passing a point where we do agree.

For example, I agree with what I believe is your view that once Germany found itself fighting both Britain and the USSR at the same time, it was in serious trouble. Once it found itself fighting Britain, the USSR and the USA it was, barring some earth shaking Allied catastrophe, clearly doomed.

By Hitler's reasoning that wasn't going to happen because his troops would triumph in the USSR before the United States could tip the balance. In effect his reasoning was the same as Hindenburg's in 1918, rather than settle for half a pie he wanted it all. -- As you probably know, after the Russian collapse in WWI Imperial Germany had the chance to hold their eastern winnings and settle with Brit/France by withdrawing from Belgium and France, and Hindenburg told the Kaiser they'd win it on both fronts, so they didn't. -- Hitler fell into the same trap.

So, I think the key points of no return for the Third Reich were:

I) Expanding the war to the USSR without first ending the one with Britain.

II) Declaring war on the United States. By doing so while still fighting the USSR & UK he committed a fatal mistake.

And, of course, the most basic mistake was that of having a repugnant regime. Even before the Holocaust in 1942, it had become too despised for other nations to continue dealing with. If the Reich's goal had only been the unification of Europe without any of the racism, I believe it might well have succeeded. But in its actual form it made itself hated in every territory it entered, even those that initially welcomed them as liberators. Which is why I said earlier that a key factor was the Reich's moral poison; I think, eventually, it would have fallen apart from within.

-- But beyond his involvment in military decisions, I believe Hitler had already negated any chance for a peaceful settlement after 1943, when his policy of mass genocide began to be known beyond the borders of the Reich. When word began spreading about the millions being murdered in concentration camps I don't believe either Britain or the United States could have made peace with him. Stalin might have agreed to stop fighting, but naturally it would only have been an unstable cease fire in the east that one or the other was certain to reneg on.

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John,

The Germans would have been much better of being seen as liberators than oppressors. The end result was either they could ethnically cleanse everyone who was opposed to the regime or to the deeper sentiment of their Ideals.. Those people weren't all going to step forward either to be indentified. Many within the system were against it, especially as the war progressed and they saw the reality for what it was. Harder to clean the blood off your hands when you're busy fighting millions of Russians and attempting to prevent a 2nd or 3rd front.

The other alternative is a more peaceful Reich, including all people's who were oppressed already in the Soviet Union into a Peaceful yet swift and Military Regime, Peaceloving to it's own subjects

That would've given ManPower and popular opinion. Once the Politics were given to the Policitians and taken out of the hands of men like Hitler, perhaps the Germans had a chance. Then again, not to say that the enemies were peacelovers and would've let Hitler off with such ambitions, then it would've required a real Major Victory after France to secure the new Order.

I did not understand the foolish ideas the Germans had in WW1, they could've regained their momentum reorganized and launched a 2nd World War and won.

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Liam,

You bring up some very interesting points here.

I don't think Imperial Germany, in 1918, was thinking at all in terms of mounting a second part of the war later on. Really, if they'd have accepted the 1918 Anglo-French propossal they'd have had much more than their most optimistic projection prior to the Czarist collapse. From what I've read Kaiser Wilhelm was in favor of accepting it but was held back by two groups.

The first consisted of Germans who wanted that peace treaty but without returning any of France or Belgium. That was clearly unreasonable, tantamount to a total German victory, with neither the French or British were willing to concede. A moderate part of that group was willing to return western Belgium and northern France, but not eastern Belgium or Alsace and Lorraine.

The second consisted of Ludendorff and a handful of high ranking army officers. They were certain that a final offensive in France would bag Paris and win the war decisively with Germany dictating it's terms. This seemed reasonable enough militarily considering German was shifting more than 1,000,000 and thousands of artillery pieces to France from Russia. One of the things it ignored was the morale of the troops already on the Western Front, which was very low, an important factor in the Hindenburg-Ludendorff Offensive falling short. The balance shifted almost immediately when the American arrivals outweighed the shifted German troops, who were attacked before they had a chance to adjust and were subsequently rolled back almost to German territory during the late summer and autumn.

Overall, the blame lies with Kaiser Wilhelm II. Despite his bluster he proved to not be forceful enough to impose his own will over those who were obviously caught up in the momentum of winning in the east.

Regarding the more peaceful Reich, that was impossible as long as Hitler was it's leader. He was obsessed with the Wagnerian Gotterdammerung image of heroic death. The nation had two choices, either conquer at every turn, or be destroyed. His main pattern was to constantly over reach himself. This happened throughout all of his bloodless victories in the 1930s and, in war, through to the final crushing of Germany. In the end he complained that it was the German people who had let fallen short and they deserved no better than the hell he'd left them with. Worse, he said the future belonged to the Slavs, who he thought of in the vilest of terms, because they had shown the superior will.

But -- Hitler's mental state was in a constant state of deterioration. I think there's room to speculate on what would have happened if:

1) He'd died during the war -- especially if he'd died before launching Barbarossa and

2) If his deterioration hadn't gotten worse after the Spring of 1940.

-- I see that as a possiblity if he could have brought the war to an end with the fall of France.

From the Battle of Britain onwards his reasoning became ever less rational. This is in regard not only to the conduct of the war in Russia, but also with the Holocaust.

The moment Germany's plans encompassed the outright extermination of the Jews, it's chances of bringing the war -- I mean prior to DOW on the United States -- became sharply less likely.

-- Beyond the inhumanity of killing six or seven million people, along with their productivity loss, there was the next stage of downward spiralling in seeing other groups as worthy of extermination and still others as good for nothing but the most base kind of servitude.

As you said, if the Reich had been more peaceful, and even moderately tolerant of those its quack eugenicists saw as inferior, without the Holocaust, it's prospects of surviving the war and controling most of Europe would have been excellent.

-- In a postwar situation where Germany restored France and contented itself with its pre Fall Weiss territorial gains, I think there would have been an inevitable war with the USSR. And, without a second and third front, as you said, it would probably have gone to Germany's favor. An eventual line might have stabilized somewhere in European Russia, perhaps similar to what Germany would have had if it had accepted a peace treaty with Britain and France in 1918.

Odd how these things move along similar grooves. ;)

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