Geographical - Germany for a warlike nation is near totally unsuited to it. While it has some mountains and forests it is has near to no seaboard, and slapbang in the centre of Europe. And between their enemies. Hypothetically of they had more advantageous location they could have faired better. Being out of the range of enemy bombers is vital.

Industrial - Only switched to total war in 1942/43 and never could come close to America’s, Russia’s output. With an industry that could fire out tigers, panthers, me262s, v2s it would wreck

Numerical - Germanys officers and men are near universally regarded as some of the best in the whole war and history. With numbers of them matching the vast reserves the Allies could call on, they would have prevailed..


The Nazis took on a lost cause from the beginning, world history could have been very, very different..




Until you realise it’s all moot anyway because ‘Merica got the nuke!!! Would a continent conquering Nazi empire caught up?

It would've won if it was still Prussia

Imagine not being allies with at least one neighbor. Hitler shouldn't have waged war against Russia until he defeated the British. A little patience goes a long way

If he had enough oil to wage the war/Operation Barbarossa was more directed and not so spread out over the Russian frontier with seemingly endless at odds objectives.

Geographical -- More or less agree with you here.

Industrial -- Doesn't matter how much Germany produced in my opinion. They were never going to be able to out-produce the Allies to begin with, but the real problem is that they had no way to even get to the major wartime production centers of the USSR, England, or America. They didn't even have a bomber than could cross the ocean, and no navy capable of getting any of their 2-3 engine bombers close enough. If they had been able to shut down wartime production and/or import for the Allies, MAYBE they could have starved the USSR into surrender and reached some kind of brokered peace with England and America.

Numerical -- I'd recommend you take a look at the book The Myth of the Eastern Front for info here. The reason the German military is regarded as so phuckin' epic and the Soviet military is regarded as so inept is largely because after WWII during Operation Paperclip and similar efforts to bring former-Nazis to work in the US, these guys had a fairly large influence on explaining the "reality" of the Eastern Front to western military historians. As such, there was a well-documented trend of inflation of the prowess of Nazi officers and enlisted compared to Soviet. Historians largely agree that while certainly above average, Operation Barbarossa was a pretty laughable attempt at invading Russia and it was nowhere close to a success.

They could not win a war on two fronts.

This. He shouldnt have focused on different enemies at the same time. His biggest mistake was attack Russia, the beginning of the end.

His mistake was he never invaded Britain. He waxed lyrical about the British in Mein Kampf and considered them even more Aryan than Germans due to the Anglo-Saxon, Viking, Flemish and Norman blood. This may have been why he never invaded via land. He was literally just across the water. If Britain sided with Germany, the world would be different. Do any British brahs remember the old "We could have been speaking German!!"...Instead of the litany of 3rd world garbles we have on our Island now.

It seems sentimentality is a flaw during times of barbarism. The IRA never once bombed Scotland due to the same Gaelic brethren sentimentality.

Stalingrad pretty much did the German war machine in.

If Heinz Guderian’s tactics would have been implemented, Moscow would have fallen.

“You hit somebody with your fist and not with your fingers spread.”

Why have world class Field Marshals and not listen to their advice? Same went with Rommel.

Napoleon got to Moscow and the Russians just burned it and retreated to Saint-Petersburg. Doubt that would have caused Stalin to surrender in all honestly. The USSR had near-unlimited manpower and land.

Most of the people who made chit and worked in stores were Jews. Hitler killed them all so nobody was around to produce everyday chit they needed.

Definitely industrial.

America’s entrance into the war with their industrial might was the major difference.

strong username to post content correlation

They suffered badly from their absence. Germany has some of the worst technology and infrastructure in Europe. Their engineering is particularly bad. Never buy a German car...

I've got some personal teeth in this discussion. When we sent our bombers with fighter escorts, the German fighters were shooting down our fighters because they had stronger engines. I believe it was the Messerschmitt, it had a turbo charged engine. It could carry more ammo and still outmanuever our fighters. We tried flying at higher altitudes, but the super charged engine still outperformed our engines, and they would shoot down our bombers.

Some brilliant engineers at Rolls Royce developed a double supercharged engine to put in a new fighter. It was called the P51 Mustang. Our old fighters carried 4 30 cal machine guns. The Mustang carried 6 50 cals and could outmaneuver and shoot down the German fighters. Thus allowing our bombers to drop bombs on the German factories.

The problem with the Mustang is that that it had to have very high octane fuel. The fuel had to be produced in batches in limited quantities, and it was expensive to produce. Fuel availability was the limiting factor. Some petrochemical engineers in LaPorte Texas developed a continuous flow process to make the fuel. Now the fuel can be mass produced at a fraction of the cost. The process was called Fluid Hydraulic Catalyst Cracking. They called the large structure that made the fuel "The Cat Unit".

There is a refinery in my town. At the center of it is another "Cat Unit". My son in law is an operator there. About $13,000.00 worth of product flows through it every minute, 24/7/365 unless something breaks down. When it breaks down, the refinery shuts down. That's when 30-50 boilermakers come here from all across the midwest to fix it and get it up and running. 2 12 hour shifts, day and night, 13 days in a row, then a day off. They usually stay in my furnished rental houses. Most repairs take 2-4 weeks. Where there is chaos, there is cash.

Lol

They dun goofd not beating the UK before going into Russia. They actuallyneeded to strike Russia as soon as possible not avoid striking Russia.

Great post.

Many people have conquered Europe. No one has held it.

Das it mane. I’ve done a lot of reading into WWII, both of my Grandfathers fought during the conflict.This is correct. The White Russian army was also fighting against the Red Army simultaneously, that may have helped at the time.

My grandfather was Waffen SS

Respect the Bear
Respect the Winter

Germany was going to lose World War 2 no matter what scenario or argument you draw up. It went against 3 of the worlds Major Powers at the time and it simply could not match the numerical advantage the Allies had nor the cohesion they had.

Let's start with the Axis Alliance. It wasn't an alliance in the traditional sense. The members inside the Axis were only in it either by necessity (force) or they believed they could gain something by it. Also there were infighting between the members, they did not share weaponry or their industry and there was zero communications at time. This was the case with Bulgaria which only joined the Axis for territorial claims on Yugoslavia (it was briefly in the Axis as well but the whole Coup thing changed that), Greece and Romania (Romania was an axis member and yet Bulgaria still pressed their claims on Southern Dobruja. Bulgaria also didn't bother sending troops to the Eastern Front and they changed sides the second the russians reached their borders. Romania and Hungary actively had minor skirmishes and they kept a large army back at home in case war broke out. The Germans had to divert men to the border between these two in order to make sure all went well. Plus the Germans had to put the Italians between the Hungarians and Romanian forces near stalingrad because of the tension. Finland was in it for itself, didn't help in the taking of Leningrad and they were too small to do anything anyways. Japan was too busy forming their useless Empire instead of invading the Soviets or at least tying them up in the East. Italy was plagued with poor leadership and Mussolini was very secretive early on in the war about his plans. You expect this alliance of selfish leaders to have enough cohesion to beat the Soviets, the Americans or even the British Empire?

In terms of industry. Germany was not going to match the production of the allies no matter what it did. It couldn't even supply it's Axis minors as promised. Even if Germany could make 1000 jet fighters. Who's gonna fly them? Where is the fuel coming from? Germany was having manpower issues as early as 1942-43 and fuel issues since late 1941. Germany would have to standardize soviet equipment and give them to it's axis minor but instead it sent thousands of t-34's and t-26's to Germany in order to be melted for steel. Imagine giving those t-34's to Slovakia, Hungary and Romania and standardizing their productions.

Geographically it really made no difference. Germany simply could not escape from allied bombers. The best options they had was to build underground factories or move their factories to the Austrian Alps or Silesia. They didn't do it and they paid for it.

Resource wise, the Axis was at a disadvantage. The so-called German generals believed war was purely based on tactical victories. World War 2 was a resource war. Simply taking a nations capital wasn't enough to make them surrender. During Stalingrad and the drive for the Caucasus Franz Halder made many changes to the original plan which doomed the German's drive towards the oil fields. These changes to Case Blue doomed Germany to defeat. This is also where we see Hitler become Stalin and Stalin becomes Hitler. (Personality change) It's as if they both knew the end was near.

So no Germany could never have won ww2. All it could have hoped for was a peace treaty after the fall of France and that never happened. Churchill did not believe Hitler and he was never going to agree to a truce with him. Had North Africa went better maybe Churchill would have been more likely but the Uk still had vast resources to draw from and it had a near endless manpower supply thanks to it's colonies and dominions. Once the USA and the Soviet Union got involved it was over for the Axis. They simply could not match their cohesion and vast resources. The Allies put their differences aside and fought a common enemy, the Axis could not put their differences and were actively infighting. (They had no common goal) The Soviet Union was the only common enemy Germany and Japan had and yet Japan signed a Non-Aggression Pact with them once Barbarossa began.

Mine was a Queen's Own Cameronian Highlander. Was at El Alamein. My dad got a rifle round from his gun chromed. Just a bunch of boys really.

I disagree with the Geography point. Germany did have a port, but more importantly, they took over the entire northern coast line in short order. If they were geographically isolated, they would not have been able to use the blitzkrieg tactics that won them mainland Europe. Moreover, Japan is example A in geographic isolation just delaying the homeland destruction.

germany didn't know when to stop

Germans defeated the the Russians in World War 1 while fighting the U.K. and France...

They were teamed up with Astria-Hungary tho

"We would have won, but we lost." - Hitler, just before he offed himself.

"I would have won, but I lost." - Trump, just before he...oh not yet. Give it time, bud.