Hitler's Military Interference

Incarnations

Decided to spend my afternoon in work reading about Hitler on wikipedia. From what I've read it seems that Germany would have had a good chance to win world war 2 if had had just let his generals do their jobs.

The major fukc up seemed to be his order to delay the advance to Moscow. Had they not delayed they could well have defeated the Soviet Union and vastly increased their resources in doing so.

So do you think Germany would have won the war if Hitler didn't interfere so much with the military tactical decisions ?

banquo

Hitler wasn't all bad. In fairness, he did kill Hitler.

Dyr

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5agLW7fTzBc

basically, Hitler lost because he was Hitler

Duckworth_Luas

banquo wrote: »

Hitler wasn't all bad. In fairness, he did kill Hitler.

WRONG! Hitler helped Hitler escape to South America where he died in 1987.

Riskymove

Incarnations wrote: »

The major fukc up seemed to be his order to delay the advance to Moscow.

I think deciding to invade Russia was the problem and opening a second front

Fred Swanson

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Skylinehead

Incarnations wrote: »

Decided to spend my afternoon in work reading about Hitler on wikipedia. From what I've read it seems that Germany would have had a good chance to win world war 2 if had had just let his generals do their jobs.

The major fukc up seemed to be his order to delay the advance to Moscow. Had they not delayed they could well have defeated the Soviet Union and vastly increased their resources in doing so.

So do you think Germany would have won the war if Hitler didn't interfere so much with the military tactical decisions ?

It could be argued that invading Russia at all was the main cause. It's hard to tell what would have happened if they had taken Moscow (they were so close they could see the Kremlin) but likely Stalin would have relocated to the east and just done the same thing.

Conall Cernach

Incarnations wrote: »

Decided to spend my afternoon in work reading about Hitler on wikipedia. From what I've read it seems that Germany would have had a good chance to win world war 2 if had had just let his generals do their jobs.

The major fukc up seemed to be his order to delay the advance to Moscow. Had they not delayed they could well have defeated the Soviet Union and vastly increased their resources in doing so.

So do you think Germany would have won the war if Hitler didn't interfere so much with the military tactical decisions ?

That is debatable. The other side of the argument is that the Germans could well have arrived in Moscow in the middle of winter to find a couple of undefeated Soviet armies on their flanks.

Gmol

Fred Swanson wrote: »

War on 2 fronts was his biggest mistake. If he had left the USSR alone be would have won the war easily.

Think the fact he declared war on America was the main thing. Once they got their act together they would have defeated Germany.

topper75

He needed the oil from the Caucasus to fuel the effort in the west. It wasn't all madness or greed. It was necessary for his campaign.

Even if the generals had made a successful push for Moscow... as my old history teacher used to say "one thing to win an empire, and another to hold it".

Artful_Badger

It was never gonna work. It was a mad bastard plan that was always gonna end in tears.

darkpagandeath

Hitler was the best thing to happen in the 2nd world war he made it a lot shorter in the long run. The generals could have taken Europe and kept it.

Riskymove

Fred Swanson wrote: »

This post has been deleted.

agreed but I also think a conforntation between the two lunatics would be inevitable at some point and possibly at a time when they had far nastier weapons...may actually have been much worse for europe

Cool Mo D

Hitler was never going to win WWII. He couldn't have not invaded the USSR - that was the whole point of the war, to grab Lebensraum in the East by killing/displacing everyone who lived in Eastern Europe to be resettled as a pure German empire.
He also never had a viable plan for invading Britain, and if he had hung on until 1945 by repelling D-day, it would have been Germany who got the nuclear treatment instead of Japan.

Riskymove

Gmol wrote: »

Think the fact he declared war on America was the main thing. Once they got their act together they would have defeated Germany.

so it was japan's fault then really!!

kneemos

His initial ease of success in conquering western Europe gave him false belief in his armies abilities I've always thought.They did however come damn close to pulling it off and nobody could question the professionalism of the Nazi army.

darkpagandeath

kneemos wrote: »

His initial ease of success in conquering western Europe gave him false belief in his armies abilities I've always thought.They did however come damn close to pulling it off and nobody could question the professionalism of the Nazi army.

Don't you mean the German army the SS would have been the Nazi army

RichardoKhan

So nothing to do with him being unhinged then...................

MonstaMash

In a speech on April 28, 1939, Hitler presented the following list of what he felt were his accomplishments...

"I overcame chaos in Germany, restored order, enormously raised production in all fields of our national economy.

I succeeded in completely resettling in useful production those 7 million unemployed who so touched our hearts.

I have not only politically united the German nation but also rearmed it militarily & I have further tried to liquidate that treaty, sheet by sheet, whose 448 articles contain the vilest rape that nations & human beings have ever been expected to submit to.

I have restored to the Reich the provinces grabbed from us in 1919.

I have led millions of deeply unhappy Germans, who have been snatched away from us, back into the Fatherland.

I have restored the thousand year old historical unity of German living space & I have attempted to accomplish all that without shedding blood & without inflicting the sufferings of war on my people or any other.

I have accomplished all this, as one who 21 years ago still an unknown worker & a soldier of my people, by my own efforts."

A great lad auld Adolph :rolleyes:

Donkey Oaty

Incarnations wrote: »

Decided to spend my afternoon in work reading about Hitler on wikipedia.

"All our operators are busy at the moment...."

Karl Stein

Artful_Badger wrote: »

It was never gonna work. It was a mad bastard plan that was always gonna end in tears.

I agree with this. Even if he had stayed out of Russia and taken all of western Europe including Britain and Ireland how long would it have lasted in the face of ceaseless resistance?

Tony EH

Incarnations wrote: »

Decided to spend my afternoon in work reading about Hitler on wikipedia. From what I've read it seems that Germany would have had a good chance to win world war 2 if had had just let his generals do their jobs.

The major fukc up seemed to be his order to delay the advance to Moscow. Had they not delayed they could well have defeated the Soviet Union and vastly increased their resources in doing so.

So do you think Germany would have won the war if Hitler didn't interfere so much with the military tactical decisions ?

Germany never had a single chance of winning the war. Even if Britain and France never stuck their oar in, at best Germany could only hope for a stalemate with Russia.

BTW, all the major leaders of WWII "interfered" with the progress of their war at some point or another. Churchill was actually told at one point to back off by other members of the cabinet, as his track record (ie the Dardanelles and Norway) weren't all that great.

topper75

I can't accept that the dogged determination and sheer bloody mindedness shown by Stalin/the red army at Stalingrad was all mustered simply because Hitler ordered his generals to hold up for a little while.

ClovenHoof

Overstretched himself in the East and ploughed valuable resources into his racial genocide.

Albert Speer knew the war was lost by Summer 1943.

Too be honest the Germans had a lot of good luck in 39-42.

burnhardlanger

Wouldn't the US have started to annihilate Germany into a surrender with their new fancy atom bombs anyway?

Elmer Blooker

topper75 wrote: »

He needed the oil from the Caucasus to fuel the effort in the west. It wasn't all madness or greed. It was necessary for his campaign.

Even if the generals had made a successful push for Moscow... as my old history teacher used to say "one thing to win an empire, and another to hold it".

Good point, it wasn't all madness.
When the Germans were advancing on Moscow he ordered his generals to turn south towards Kiev and capture Ukraine which was the most industrialized part of the Soviet Union and also the grain growing region or breadbasket of the Soviet Union. Of course the generals wanted the big prize Moscow but generals are not economists.
Thankfully things are done with banks and not tanks these days

Triangla

burnhardlanger wrote: »

Wouldn't the US have started to annihilate Germany into a surrender with their new fancy atom bombs anyway?

Which were designed with input from German scientists who had to leave because of Hitler.

Tony EH

darkpagandeath wrote: »

Don't you mean the German army the SS would have been the Nazi army

There's no such thing as a "nazi" army.

Dyr

Triangla wrote: »

Which were designed with input from German scientists who had to leave because of Hitler.

Which led to the quote from a british (?) source "we won because our german scientists were better than their german scientists"

quickbeam

I think everybody's missing the point here. What the hell kind of job does the OP have that they can spend a whole afternoon online reading up on history? And are there any vacancies?

Tony EH

ClovenHoof wrote: »

Overstretched himself in the East and ploughed valuable resources into his racial genocide.

Albert Speer knew the war was lost by Summer 1943.

Too be honest the Germans had a lot of good luck in 39-42.

Germany overstretched themselves in every theatre of war. There wasn't anywhere where the Wehrmacht wasn't lacking in important supplies. In fact, it's in the east where she was the best supplied of all, for the majority of the war.

Also, the functions employed for holocaust were a mere fraction of Germany's resources and wouldn't have made one iota of difference to the outcome.

From 39-41 and during 1942 Germany was successful because she had the better military doctrines and structure of any army she faced. It had little to do with luck. They were just better in the field.

Unfortunately for the Germans their army was a tactical one and not a strategic one. Great for short wars, not so great for long protracted conflicts.

The fact that Germany managed to keep an army in the field until 1945 and throughout a large number of areas is somewhat of a miracle.

AlekSmart

quickbeam wrote: »

I think everybody's missing the point here. What the hell kind of job does the OP have that they can spend a whole afternoon online reading up on history? And are there any vacancies?

Easy Peasy.....The OP's a Garda whistelblower to be,on a dry run !

theKillerBite

Why did Hitler want to conquer Europe/North Africa & Russia?? How did he expect to control such a vast region, I know he wanted "living space" but occupying such a vast region would have required all the manpower of the country to be on a continuous war footing forever.

ClovenHoof

theKillerBite wrote: »

Why did Hitler want to conquer Europe/North Africa & Russia?? How did he expect to control such a vast region, I know he wanted "living space" but occupying such a vast region would have required all the manpower of the country to be on a continuous war footing forever.

oil

Tony EH

theKillerBite wrote: »

Why did Hitler want to conquer Europe/North Africa & Russia?? How did he expect to control such a vast region, I know he wanted "living space" but occupying such a vast region would have required all the manpower of the country to be on a continuous war footing forever.

He didn't.

Russia was Hitler's goal. Everything else wasn't even on the cards.

Hitler saw during WWI how Germany was reliant on overseas imports. the blockade of the country had led to incredible hardship and mass starvation. In order to eliminate the need for imports and to strengthen Germany as a true world power, Germany was to forge an empire of sorts from Russian territory, mainly the resource rich Ukraine. The Ukraine had been a desirable spot for the expansion of more than just Germany, which is why Russia was there in the first place.

Hitler, like the vast majority of Europe's leaders, also feared and despised Communism, which he viewed as a world threat, in pretty much the same way as the US viewed her during the cold war. But, Hitler intertwined Communists, Socialists, Jews and others into a semi-monolithic target. A target he believed was poised to destroy Europe, or at least mold it into a Soviet of some description.

darkpagandeath

Tony EH wrote: »

There's no such thing as a "nazi" army.

So a paramilitary group under the direct control of Hitler I.E Nazis was not an army ? Do you even know who the SS were ?

titan18

theKillerBite wrote: »

Why did Hitler want to conquer Europe/North Africa & Russia?? How did he expect to control such a vast region, I know he wanted "living space" but occupying such a vast region would have required all the manpower of the country to be on a continuous war footing forever.

North Africa was mainly an Italian theatre, Germany only really had to come in cos the Italians were useless and it was a major strategic point for Britain.

Russia were a threat to any expansion into Eastern Europe past Poland, and even if Germany hadn't attacked them so early, war would have eventually happened. The Molotov - Ribbentrop pact was really just a delay.

They'd have probably defeated Britain if they kept the war going there and delayed the Soviet invasion. US would more than likely have eventually entered the war even without Japan, but Germany would have been in a very strong position by that point.

Hitler lost the war alright with his interference, but not sure how long a German empire would have lasted with a war against Russia and the US along with internal resistance

Hootanany

Incarnations wrote: »

Decided to spend my afternoon in work reading about Hitler on wikipedia. From what I've read it seems that Germany would have had a good chance to win world war 2 if had had just let his generals do their jobs.

The major fukc up seemed to be his order to delay the advance to Moscow. Had they not delayed they could well have defeated the Soviet Union and vastly increased their resources in doing so.

So do you think Germany would have won the war if Hitler didn't interfere so much with the military tactical decisions ?

Civil service by any chance

Tony EH

darkpagandeath wrote: »

So a paramilitary group under the direct control of Hitler I.E Nazis was not an army ? Do you even know who the SS were ?

The Waffen SS were not the same entity as the Allgemeine SS and while their nominal head was Himmler since its inception, they were subordinated to the OKW (Oberkommando Der Wehrmacht).

While the Schutzstaffel (SS) were created as a paramilitary organisation in the 20s as a small security body for Hitler and refined in the 30's, their offshoot, the Waffen SS had very different structures and reasons for being.

By 1942, the Waffen SS had long since ceased to be even remotely connected to the original organisation of the late 30's.

Even still, the Waffen SS were not a "nazi" army. It's members did not have to be in the party and in fact it drew personnel from all over Europe. The majority of men who passe through the ranks of the Waffen SS weren't even German and their political affiliations ranged from neutral, to conservative, to die hard National Socialist.

If there's one political ideal that Waffen SS soldiers agreed upon, it was anti Communism.

Cookie_Monster

It's all the incompetent Italian's fault

Andrew_Doran

Gmol wrote: »

Think the fact [Hitler] declared war on America was the main thing. Once they got their act together they would have defeated Germany.

Hmm. I'm not so sure. Don't know what to think really, other than the Soviet contribution to the war is so underplayed. Killed/missing in WW-II:

Soviet Union 10,725,345
Third Reich 5,533,000
British Empire 580,497
United States 318,274

Gmol

Andrew_Doran wrote: »

Hmm. I'm not so sure. Don't know what to think really, other than the Soviet contribution to the war is so underplayed. Killed/missing in WW-II:

Soviet Union 10,725,345
Third Reich 5,533,000
British Empire 580,497
United States 318,274

Russia suffered terribly in the war but Hitler s main mistake was to declare war on America, when they would have fully mobilised they would have defeated Germany. They had more capability. Also if the intention was to invade Russia, opening 2 fronts was crazy.

Tony EH

Hitler only opened one front. The Eastern front.

Britain and France declared war on Germany. Not the other way round.

As for Hitler declaring war on America, he was really only putting into effect a situation that already existed to a very large degree. The US had been pushing her Atlantic zones of influence further and further eastwards and had been depth charging German U-Boats, who had fired on US vessels, albeit in error as Hitler had put strict orders in place not to do so. She had also been supplying Germany's enemies with arms and material.

Hitler had also hoped to bring Japan into the Russian conflict with his declaration of war on the US. In December 1941, Barbarossa had severely run out of steam and the Wehrmacht had floundered. Hitler's idea that the "whole rotten edifice" of Communism would come crashing down if he "kicked in the door" proved to be false and Germany was in serious trouble. If Japan could be brought into the conflict, by reciprocating Hitlers gesture, and tie up Russian troops east of the Urals, it would be easier to get German offensives going again.

Unfortunately for Hitler, the Japanese couldn't afford to commit the necessary troops to an unwanted Russian campaign.

Either way, Hitler knew that the US was VERY eager to get involved in the war, regardless of who called it first and essentially just switched on the light when everybody was in the room.

DazMarz

Several huge errors made by Hitler:

-Never fully including Japan in his plans or promising them territorial gains. Had the Japanese invaded the western USSR as the German armies attacked from the East, the USSR could easily have fallen. Why? The Soviets moved much of their production and manufacturing into the western regions in Siberia and so on. Beyond the reach of the Germans. Had Hitler been able to get the Japanese to invade the USSR, the Soviets would have had nowhere to move their production facilities and the Soviet war machine could have been crippled in a pincer movement from the Germans in the East and the Japanese in the West.

-Launching Operation Barbarossa too late (22nd June, 1942), and as a result the German armies would get bogged down in the bitter Russian winters. The Germans ground to a halt outside the cities of Leningrad, Moscow and Stalingrad through the winter of '42/'43. Had Barbarossa started a few months earlier, say in March or February, there is a chance that the cities would have fallen as the Germans would have possibly advanced further.

-Failing to take Stalingrad and thus failing to take the oil fields in and around Baku.

-Declaring war on the United States and bringing their huge economic, production and military power into the war on the side of the Allies. The USA always leaned towards supporting Britain and the Allies, but public opinion in the USA was to stay out of the war. Until the Japanese launched their attack on Pearl Harbour. Then, when Japan's ally Germany declared war, the Americans swung into action and ultimately crushed the Japanese and played a role in defeating the Germans (the Soviets did most of the battling against the Germans and would have defeated them anyway, regardless of intervention from America/Britain; it just would have taken longer).

-Using up huge amounts of resources and manpower on the Holocaust that could have been used to fighting the war. Thousands of Totenkompfverbande SS troops were stationed in concentration/death camps. Raw materials were used to construct and operate the camps. If all of that was instead pushed into battling the Soviets, it would probably have had negligible effects, but who knows?

-Failing to secure air supremacy over the skies of Europe. The Luftwaffe failed in its attempts to dominate the skies above Europe, especially in the west where the RAF had great successes. Thus, Operation Sealion (the planned invasion of Great Britain) could never materialise. Had the Germans established air supremacy, Sealion could have gone ahead, and the chance of at least damaging Britain severely would have been a reality. As it was, the Germans never succeeded and this failure gave a huge boon to the Allied cause.

-Failure to respond in kind to the British Commandos. The British Commando units were very active in the war, going behind enemy lines in covert incursion tactics. Sabotaging infrastructure, communications, supply lines, defences and materiel. These harassing measures damaged the German war effort and drained morale. The Germans had no real comparable units and had they used similar units and performed similar missions, it would have helped their effort whilst damaging the Allied effort.

Red Pepper

DazMarz wrote: »

Several huge errors made by Hitler:

-Launching Operation Barbarossa too late (22nd June, 1942), and as a result the German armies would get bogged down in the bitter Russian winters. The Germans ground to a halt outside the cities of Leningrad, Moscow and Stalingrad through the winter of '42/'43. Had Barbarossa started a few months earlier, say in March or February, there is a chance that the cities would have fallen as the Germans would have possibly advanced further.

Barbarossa was 1941 but yes this was a huge reason for Hitler's defeat. The invasion of Russia started 8 weeks later than originally planned. He still had them on their knees when the harsh Russian winter halted the German progress.

If he had even waited until 1942 to invade Russia, things could have been so different - he could have consolidated Europe and escalated the Blitz and U-Boat campaign.

From all accounts the UK politicians were pressing Churchill for a peace treaty in 1942 when Hitler turned his attention eastward. At one point, England had only a few weeks of food and supplies.

tomwaterford

Andrew_Doran wrote: »

Hmm. I'm not so sure. Don't know what to think really, other than the Soviet contribution to the war is so underplayed. Killed/missing in WW-II:

Soviet Union 10,725,345
Third Reich 5,533,000
British Empire 580,497
United States 318,274

this not said anywhere near enough...as much as people don't like Russia with its carry on in Ukraine and the cold war...thet suffered horrendous at the hands of the germans and were every bit as important if not more so than britin and the us in the defeat of Germany in ww2

dj jarvis

Tony EH wrote: »

There's no such thing as a "nazi" army.

yea there was , the SA , the SS , and the Wehrmacht were directly controlled by the Nazis , the entire German fighting force , land sea and air were an Nazi army.

maybe a small percentage were professional soldiers , but they were a Nazi controlled army , so ergo , a Nazi army

Tony EH

DazMarz wrote: »

-Launching Operation Barbarossa too late (22nd June, 1942), and as a result the German armies would get bogged down in the bitter Russian winters. The Germans ground to a halt outside the cities of Leningrad, Moscow and Stalingrad through the winter of '42/'43. Had Barbarossa started a few months earlier, say in March or February, there is a chance that the cities would have fallen as the Germans would have possibly advanced further.

They may have advanced a bit further, but the over all effect would have been minimal. Even if Barbarossa had been launched earlier, the Germans just didn't have enough men or resources to take the cities in question. Moscow and Leningrad would not have been taken in tandem. There would have to have been a choice made. Personally, I think Moscow would have been the target. But taking Moscow would not have been an easy task even in August/September and in fact could still have failed, resulting in massive losses for the Germans.

There's a mistaken idea that the Germans had everything their own way during Barbarossa, but the facts are that they didn't. It was a long, hard, fight for every inch gained at every turn.

DazMarz wrote: »

-Using up huge amounts of resources and manpower on the Holocaust that could have been used to fighting the war. Thousands of Totenkompfverbande SS troops were stationed in concentration/death camps. Raw materials were used to construct and operate the camps. If all of that was instead pushed into battling the Soviets, it would probably have had negligible effects, but who knows?

Again, I'll say the the resources devoted to the National Socialists racial plans were marginal and of no effect to their war effort. The troops used to guard the concentration camps were largely unfit for frontline action, convalescing, cashiered or reservists. There weren't quality troops assigned to likes of Treblinka. In addition, a large number of concentration camp guards were drawn from other nations, whom Hitler had determined were "on side" enough. Even the freight devoted to the camps were an extreme minority and would have turned any tides.

DazMarz wrote: »

-Failing to secure air supremacy over the skies of Europe. The Luftwaffe failed in its attempts to dominate the skies above Europe, especially in the west where the RAF had great successes. Thus, Operation Sealion (the planned invasion of Great Britain) could never materialise. Had the Germans established air supremacy, Sealion could have gone ahead, and the chance of at least damaging Britain severely would have been a reality. As it was, the Germans never succeeded and this failure gave a huge boon to the Allied cause.

The lack of "operation Sealion" wasn't due to the Luftwaffe's failure to knock out the RAF (something that was actually impossible to achieve), it was due to the fact that the Germans had no real way to cross the channel and challenge the British in any meaningful way. They certainly were NOT going to do on the Rhine barges they had at the Pas De Callais. Any attempt to cross the Channel in those would have ended in absolute disaster. The Royal Navy would have a field day. Plus Hitler's heart was never really in it. Even in September, there was no real plan for Sealion. It was a paper proposition. Nothing more and in Hitler's own terms was to be "carried out, if necessary..." By the time of the height of the Battle of Britain, Hitler had already reversed back to his original eastern front fixation.

Tony EH

dj jarvis wrote: »

yea there was , the SA , the SS , and the Wehrmacht were directly controlled by the Nazis , the entire German fighting force , land sea and air were an Nazi army.

maybe a small percentage were professional soldiers , but they were a Nazi controlled army , so ergo , a Nazi army

Wrong, they were a GERMAN army. The National Socialists were the government of the day, that's all.

That the nazis used the country's forces for their ends is neither here nor there.

It simply silly and misleading to call the men who fought in the Wehrmacht a "nazi" army.

By the way the SA were never part of any professional army and in fact were eliminated (although not formally liquidated) a year after the nazis came to power, precisely because they weren't in direct control of them and Ernst Rohm had designs on leadership himself.

Tony EH

Tony EH wrote: »

Wrong, they were a GERMAN army. The National Socialists were the government of the day, that's all.

That the nazis used the country's forces for their ends is neither here nor there.

It simply silly and misleading to call the men who fought in the Wehrmacht a "nazi" army.

I don't think that's entirely correct. I mean sure, individual Wehrmacht soldiers may not privately have been members of the Nazi party, voted for the Nazi party, or even have given a flying fcuk about the Nazi party. (More of the SS would be active party members and consciously supporting of that ideology, but that's another story).

As government employees, regardless of what party is in office, the role of every standing army is the defense of the state and its borders, as well as the best interests of people within it as dictated by the sitting government.

So when that army invades the Soviet Union to advance the cause of the Nazi party and act in the interests of the Nazi party, it becomes a Nazi army. They are not doing it because the individual soldiers all think it's great crack or anything, they are doing it for the forced advancement of Nazism. That was the motivation behind Barbarossa after all.

Tony EH

Armies invade other countries all the time to advance their government's causes and they've been doing that for generations.

Did the US Army's invasion of Iraq make them a Republican Army? Or even a NeoCon Army. No, of course not.

And yes the US may have come up with some bull**** reason to invade Iraq, but Hitler justified his invasion of Russia too and every other country that the German army invaded and that never included the "advancement of nazism", because he quite rightly knew that that wouldn't wash. So the usual trope protecting the country was invoked at every turn.

This satisfied some in the Wehrmacht, and no doubt was found deeply unsatisfactory to others, but seeing that a large proportion of Germany (like Europe as a whole) was anti-Communist, such a reason would have sufficed. Many German soldiers marched into Russia genuinely believing that they were liberating its people from Stalin's yoke. The fact that they were greeted as liberators by many Russians justified that opinion.

But armies do not have a say in what or where they are told to attack by the government of the day. They subordinate any political aspirations and belief to that of the government of the day.

And that's the rub. The military don't get a say.

In addition, the vast majority of the Heer, Luftwaffe, Kriegsmarine and even the SS were not part of party.