After the war, during the
Nuremberg War Trials, the court was shown a film of the German war machine in
full production. Bombs and airplanes being
assembled on a production line; a nation revelling in its newfound military
confidence. The spectacle was not only reminiscent
of Nazi-era propaganda movies, it probably consisted of them.
On seeing these films Hitler's right
hand man, Herman Goering, laughed and expressed aloud proudly: what's wrong
with that? Indeed, why shouldn't a
country have a strong military?
Germany's military had after all been eviscerated by the terms of the Versailles
Treaty. What's wrong? Well it depends on what you do with that
military. A strong military should only
be used only for defensive purposes, not offensive ones -- at least that's the
Western narrative of WW2.
Hitler may have been justified morally
in his invasion of the Soviet Union as a pre-emptive strike if it could be
proven that the Soviets had similar plans to invade Germany. David Irving's book Hitler's War claims that the Soviet troops captured during
Operation Barbarossa possessed detailed maps of Europe all the way to
Berlin. Could these maps be evidence of
Stalin's intent to invade western Europe?
Western European powers had been
using their militaries in offensive capabilities in overseas colonies for
centuries. The American political class too,
wanted to get in on the act of WW2, although the American people they governed largely
remained opposed to it. And broadly
speaking, the history of human society is a never ending procession of wars and
conquests.
The question of who is morally
justified to commit such acts of war, pre-emptive or otherwise, is largely answered
by one's own subjective feelings about the participants involved. Much like a sports fan boos a penalty he knows
his team just conceded, the victors of successful wars usually have nothing but
praise for the leaders who instigated them in their name in the first place.
Aside from the moral dimension to
the question, was it practically feasible for Hitler to have invaded the Soviet
Union? I think the answer is yes, Hitler
could have won WW2. But like so many other
events in human history a number of lessons would have had to have been learnt
in advance, lessons that only were realised after the war with the benefit of
hindsight.
Hitler's only real chance to win
WW2 was by going straight for Moscow, the political heart of Russia, during
Operation Barbarossa and taking it by the winter of 1941. Instead, Hitler got stars in his eyes due to the
early successes of the war in the east, and allowed the initial goal to become
splintered along a broad front from north to south.
Although it seemed that Germany
had three full summers from 1941 to 1943 in which to take the initiative on the
eastern front, in reality from the time Barbarossa stalled at the gates of
Moscow the war in the east was lost.
Hitler's megalomania was such that
he couldn't admit to this defeat and made sure the war was prolonged until 1945,
long after 1943 when all was clearly lost on all fronts for Germany, thus
extracting maximum pain from the situation for all sides including his
own.
In 1945, toward the latter stages
of the war, in the final sign of his megalomania, Hitler ordered the
destruction of his own country's infrastructure in retaliation for the German
people losing the war and not being superior enough for his liking. Hitler ordered waterworks, electrical
substations, railroads, etc., to be blown up in order to leave the Germans as
the peasants he thought they were now worthy of becoming.
Hitler said the world would hold
its breath when Germany invaded the Soviet Union, and it did. If successful, he would have become the
greatest hero Germany, perhaps the world, had ever known. He would be a modern day Julius Caesar; he
would be remembered as such in movies, books and plays for centuries to come;
and he almost pulled it off. But Hitler
failed in history's greatest of military gambles.
Here now are my reasons why Germany lost WW2:
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1) Hitler
underestimated the task of invading the Soviet Union.
Hitler's one real chance to win
the war was during the initial invasion of the Soviet Union. Had the Nazis have taken Moscow in time,
before the winter of 1941, Russia would have been far more disrupted.
Moscow acted like the hub in the wheel
of Russia's railroad system. By not
taking Moscow, Soviet troops could be easily moved in by rail from other parts
of the country to defend it. Rail still
worked in the autumn rains while the roads the Nazis relied upon did not.
The Soviets were not the racially
inferior military pushovers Hitler portrayed them to be. They were a strong nation on a par with
Germany, and though Stalin was the instigator of the infamous purges of
military ranks, he had taken steps to modernise and industrialise the Soviet's military
in time for the German onslaught.
The Soviets would mobilise double
the divisions the German generals had calculated. This alone rendered Operation Barbarossa
unwinnable. The Russian military
apparatus proved to be so great that it absorbed five million casualties in
this initial German onslaught and still repelled it.
2) During Operation Barbarossa Hitler diverted
from Moscow south to the Ukraine.
The results of the initial phases
of Operation Barbarossa were so bedazzling, the Nazis were convinced they were invincible
and the focus became splinted to a new ad hoc goal that veered from the original
plan. Hitler split his general's plan
for a south army to invade Moscow into central and south. In August he indulged in a foray south into the
Ukraine and the central army became a mere token thrust toward Moscow to
placate his generals.
While the southern offensive yielded
impressive statistical results in terms of captured Soviet troops it did little
to cripple the Soviet regime overall. The
final thrust toward Moscow, when it finally came around, became bogged down in
the September mud season.
3) Hitler
started the war six weeks too late.
Mussolini may have inspired the
Nazi Caesar-style salute, but that was about all the Italians had to contribute
to the Axis alliance's war effort. Germany had to step in after Italy's failed
invasions of north Africa, Yugoslavia and Greece. This delayed Operation Barbarossa by six
weeks.
Hitler had envisioned a four
month war with the Soviet Union. In
Hitler's mind the Wehrmacht wouldn't have to face the full force of the cruel
Russian winter. As a result, winter
clothing hadn't been prepared.
The dirt roads of Russia turned
into mud in the autumn rains and Germany's military machine came to a
halt. This neutralised the German
military's number one strength: mobility.
Perhaps Hitler should have built an autobahn, in advance, all the way to
Moscow for this not so unforeseeable event.
Update 16/03/2013: I have recently learned from a documentary that the weather wasn't suitable until late June 1941. The ground was too wet from rain for the tanks, so the Greek foray didn't really slow them up at all.
Update 16/03/2013: I have recently learned from a documentary that the weather wasn't suitable until late June 1941. The ground was too wet from rain for the tanks, so the Greek foray didn't really slow them up at all.
4) Hitler
failed to persuade Japan not to attack the United States.
This one would have required really
extraordinary foresight. Who could have
known at the commencement of Operation Barbarossa, June 22 1941, that by the Russian
winter snow-equipped troops redeployed from Siberia would be vital to the
defence of Moscow, troops that were freed up from having to defend Siberia as a
result of Japan signing a peace treaty with Moscow? Certainly not Hitler.
Perhaps Germany could have engaged
Japan better, in return for Japan not dragging the US into the war. Japan incorrectly
regarded the pact between Russia and Germany as genuine rather than as the
stalling tactic Hitler intended it to be.
To their detriment in this regard
Germany played its own part in encouraging Japan to make peace with Moscow by signing
the Ribbentrop-Molotov pact.
Japan was much more the equal
ally to Germany Hitler had longed for than Italy ever was -- the latter acted
more like a millstone around his neck. Alas, Hitler's racist beliefs would blind him
to this fact, and he would never regard the Japanese as his equals, militarily,
racially or otherwise, therefore underutilising them. There was no globe-encompassing coordination
between the Tripartite members on a par with that of the allies.
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The common factor to the preceding
four reasons is related to the nature and timing of the initial attack of
Operation Barbarossa. All the remaining
reasons relate to Germany's failure as a result of the multiyear war that ensued
from 1942 onward.
After the failure of Barbarossa, Hitler
would have been better to have heeded his generals advice to admit to defeat in
Russia and withdraw to a more favourable defensive line. But Hitler was far too arrogant to admit to this
defeat and ordered a no-withdrawal policy that ended in doom for Germany.
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5) Hitler
fought a war on two fronts
Russia's great feat in repelling Operation Barabarossa in the east had been matched in the west by Britain's resolve during the Battle of Britain.
Britain, although numerically
outnumbered, was Germany's match in the air.
It's engineers and technology were amongst the world's leading.
Goering wrongly advised Hitler
that his Luftwaffe would win the Battle of Britain; to the contrary, Britain survived
and wasn't neutralised before the commencement of Barbarossa.
Just when the Luftwaffe was gaining the
upper hand on the RAF, Hitler again meddled to Germany's detriment by
telling Goering to bomb British cities in the retaliation for the
British bombing of Germany. This took the pressure off the RAF long
enough for them to recover.
Hitler's invasion of Britain, Operation Sea Lion, never came to pass, perhaps because of the prowess of the Royal British Navy, or perhaps because of his own irrepressible drive to invade eastward.
Hitler's invasion of Britain, Operation Sea Lion, never came to pass, perhaps because of the prowess of the Royal British Navy, or perhaps because of his own irrepressible drive to invade eastward.
The decision to ignore Britain
meant that Germany would be continuously bombed by British, and later by
American, warplanes from the west; and eventually a land front formed from 1944.
6) United
States aid to Britain and Russia.
This factor wasn't that decisive
during Operation Barbarossa, therefore US aid wouldn't have detracted from the initial
four-month effort that Hitler had envisioned.
But in the multiyear war that ensued this aid increasingly made a critical
difference.
7) Hitler
didn't commit to the Africa campaign.
This would have really meant the
abandonment of the lebensraum idea in the east altogether and the avoidance of
conflict with the Soviet Union. Such a
decision on Hitler's part would have played right into Stalin's hands -- the
latter had hoped that Germany and the western countries would annihilate each
other leaving Russia free to dominate central Asia.
Some suggest Hitler shouldn't
have invaded the Soviet Union at all and should have gone for British oil
interests in the middle east instead. But,
contrary to some conspiracy theories that Hitler loved England or was a spy for
it, Hitler sought to emulate the British Empire, not to displace it. Besides, Hitler wouldn't need British middle
eastern oil, for Russia's lebensraum came with a built-in oil prize in the form
of the Caucasus oil fields.
8) The United
States entry into the war.
Aside from its already
considerable material aid, the actual entry of the US into the war added a
whole new dimension. Although Germany
wasn't as much an existential threat to the US as Japan was Churchill somehow persuaded
Roosevelt to give priority to the European theatre.
9)
Hitler was a racist.
He could have enlisted the
support of millions of Soviets who despised the Bolsheviks in his war effort. But an opportunity to harness local help,
which could have been decisive, was missed because of Hitler's plans in the
East. Hitler's idea for the war in east
was one of racist annihilation. He
intended to repatriate or starve the population that existed there to be displaced
by a spreading of Germany's densely packed racial core.
He starved the Ukrainians during
the first phase of the war in the east and could have continued to have done so
with impunity had he repelled Stalin to beyond the Urals as planned.
If Hitler was successful in
Operation Barbarossa this point would have been moot. In a multiyear war for which
Hitler was unprepared being nice to people really would have helped. But being a nice guy was not in Adolf
Hitler's DNA.
10) Not moving to total war soon enough.
Hitler finally acceded to Alberts
Speer's oversight of the German war machine's production in 1943, precisely the
time that Germany clearly started losing the war. If Hitler had have planned for a multiyear
war he would have moved production underground sooner to withstand the
western aerial bombardment.
Even then Germany's version of total war wasn't truly total, for by war's end Germany's women still stayed at home as they had at its
beginning, tending to domestic chores as per the Nazi vision. In the case of all of Germany's adversaries
women participated in the wartime labour force. The Soviets even had some
all-female fighting regiments, some of which (according to Soviet records) served
at the Battle of Berlin.
11) Hitler hesitated at
Dunkirk in 1939 and didn't eliminate or capture fleeing allied troops.
Goering screwed up again by
wrongly advising Hitler that his Luftwaffe could eliminate the allied troops
trapped at Dunkirk. The Stukas Goering sent
in were outdated technology that hadn't seen tough opposition by that time and without
Messerschmitt escorts were slain by British Spitfires and Hurricanes. The massive seaborne rescue launched from
Britain meant that 350,000 allied troops would later come back to haunt the
Third Reich.
12)
Hitler chose to emphasise the wrong technologies.
Hitler insisted on meddling in
the development of military technology programs, perhaps so that he could be
remembered as "the guy" who ingeniously devised such-and-such a
crucial weapon that won Germany the war.
But his meddlings were often more counterproductive than not.
Hitler knew he couldn't build a navy
as good as the British and yet insisted on confronting them with large battleships
like the Bismarck. With the rise of air
power and naval aircraft carriers, control of the sea surface with aircraft carriers became more important, and a similar shift toward submarine warfare
under the sea surface, came to influence the war. Hitler would have been better to avoid the
building of warships, focusing instead on U-boat warfare, which had been very successful in the Atlantic.
Hitler insisted that the jet
powered Messerschmitt 262 be built as a bomber when it was clearly designed in
its outset to be a fighter.
The vengeance rocket weapons V1
and V2, though cutting edge and fearsome, really didn't change the course of
the war much.
Among Hitler's other wacky ideas
was a mega tank:
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Hitler had the quality that was insane enough, or bold enough -- call it what you will -- to take on the Soviet Union. There would be few other leaders who would have had such an ambition.
But unfortunately Hitler also possessed the fatal quality of an inflated view of his own military prowess, perhaps influenced by his time as a corporal in WW1, and insisted on leaving his imprint on every possible aspect to the war one can imagine.
Thanks to his incompetence he made critical errors that lost Germany the war. Looking back on it, it would have better if, say, one of Hitler's generals had executed him shortly after the conquest of France.
Note: I updated reason 5, and added a final concluding paragraph, on 30 Oct 2012.
This was very useful! Thanks :)
ReplyDeleteThanks mate
ReplyDeleteI think the best portrayal we could draw of Hitler is one of a Trojan horse. To bear your last sentence out about the good thing Hitler's execution could have been I would add if Germany had been led by a genuine German, however low in the social scales, i.e. a man genuinely and thoroughly animated by a sincere and patriotic desire to make his country win the war this dude would have listened carefully to everything his generals on the battlefield would have told him and he would have given them the right orders so as to win every battle but surely not an order of letting the Brits escape at Dunkirk, something very probably never seen before in human history.
ReplyDeleteWhat is really incredible is that many revisionist historians keep on worshipping Hitler as a hero and saviour of Germany. Absolutely mind-boggling.
To conclude, we can say unhesitatingly that Hitler gave the ones he was supposed to hate a brand new country in Palestine whereas he sent the others he was supposed to extol in his speeches directly at the abyss's bottom.
Well, nothing really stunning or mysterious here. That's what we call typical Jewish dialectics (just look up for instance in the Jewish Virtual Library online at the section "Biography", you'll see all the Nazi bigwigs included)….