Why Hitler lost WW2.

[Comrade Commisar]

He lost it because if his ideals he could have taken Russia easly if his ego didint get in the way. He had to many Commandrs sacked because they didint think he any good ideas. He lost because he meant to torture the Slavs because at first they welcomed the Germans but then they were tortured and killed thus forming partsian bands. He lost because of the manpower eating battles of Kursk and Stalingrad.He lost because he didint defend Berlin well. Helost because he didint strike down Britain fast enough. He lost because of Japan and its war a the US. He lost because of his belive in Wunderwaffen. He lost because of his lack of tactics. He lost because he couldent defeand the reich.
Yes the German military was a well oild machine its only flaw was Hitler and the Nazis.

These are just some of the reasons.

[Kent]

I just happened on this topic and decided to cut and paste bits and pieces of a reply I made on another subject. My two cents:

Hitler's biggest mistake (among numerous big mistakes) was picking too many fights with too many opponents at the same time**, and those opponents each had greater resources than he did. And his so-called allies were not that much help, either. Consequently, from 1943 onwards Germany was, for all intents and purposes, fighting defensively in a reactive mode still, Hitler refused to surrender long after the handwriting was on the wall.

**It's like walking into a Biker Bar alone on Saturday night and yelling, "Harley-Davidson and anybody who rides one, SUCKS!!!" You may know Kung Fu and be armed to the teeth, but eventually, innevitably, you are going to get your *** kicked.

[Kiwiguy]

I think it starts with the fact he was a paranoid psychotic and lacked any realistic perspective.

[pdf27]

Country          1938	1939	1940	1941	1942	1943	1944	1945
Austria          24	27	27	29	27	28	29	12
France           186	199	164	130	116	110	93	101
Germany          351	384	387	412	417	426	437	310
Italy   	 141	151	147	144	145	137	117	92
Japan   	 169	184	192	196	197	194	189	144
Soviet Union   	 359	366	417	359	274	305	362	343
UK               284	287	316	344	353	361	346	331
USA              800	869	943	1094	1235	1399	1499	1474

Allied Total:    1629	1600	1331	1596	1862	2065	2363	2341
Axis Total:   	 685	746	845	911	902	895	826	466

Values are for GDP in Billions of 1990 dollars. The Allied/Axis totals are weighted rather than pure adding up (e.g. France is included in both Allied and Axis columns, depending on year).

Just a cursory glance comparing the US figures alone with those for the whole of the axis demonstrates rather nicely that no matter what the Axis did, the US would crush them like a bug as soon as it got going.

Source is Harrison, Mark, "The Economics of World War II: Six Great Powers in International Comparison", Cambridge University Press (1998), via Wiki.

[Adrian Wainer]

There is obviously a lot more to it than those figures would suggest, for a start if Britain had been overwhelmed in 1940, the Third Reich might well have then gone on to defeat Russia [ NB I am not saying that a defeat of Russia would have been dependent on an occupation of the United Kingdom by the Third Reich ], the USA would have been sandwiched between Japan and a Third Reich that could draw on the Soviet Union's vast natural resources. On the other hand the figures are accurate in that with Russia and Britain undefeated, the odds were massively stacked against the Axis once the USA placed her economy on a full war footing and committed her armed forces to combat.

Best and Warm Regards
Adrian Wainer

[pdf27]

It gets worse once you realise that the US never fully went to a war economy. Yes, there was a mass conversion to a war footing, but it never went as far as in e.g. the UK (where women were conscripted from 1940 onwards). The war making potential of the US in the 1940s matches that for the rest of the world put together, and over the course of the war this imbalance just got worse.

[Adrian Wainer]

I think it starts with the fact he was a paranoid psychotic and lacked any realistic perspective.

Hi, I think it is a fair comment to call Hitler a nutjob or suchlike, but when one gets in to the arena of medical terminology I think one should try to get and get at precisely what sort of person he was.

In my view Hitler's life and activities are too complex and too directed over too long a time to support the view that he was a paranoid psychotic in that he does not seem to have been driven by fear nor does he seem to be out of touch with reality, there are certainly elements of the psychopath about Hitler and I think that is the personality type which comes closest to him. One does not have to anyway agree with Hitler's thinking and ideology to allow for the possibility that he might well have thought himself a highly honourable person trying to achieve some positive good. If one blends a psychopathic personality with an intense motivation to achieve a common good that could account for Hitler's life story. Many of Hitler's actions were highly intelligent and he succeeded in in a relatively easy defeat of several States and caused a complete and rapid collapse of what was at the time regarded ( though wrongly ) as one of the foremost military powers in the World in the shape of France and he came very close to defeating both Britain and the USSR and had he done so, I personally believe it is highly likely he would have then gone on to defeat the USA. One of the critical problems that Hitler had was that apparently believed in what he was doing e.g. a serious fascist dictator would have dropped the whole anti-Jew thing like a hot potato after he had secured power and in the event of War with the Soviet Union would have presented the Russian people with a plan for representive National Government and been precise to instruct German troops in Russia to treat civilians and POWs with respect and humanity in order to draw a distinction between "civilized" fascist German "liberators" and tyranical Communist bandit overlords in the Kremlin. Because of Hitler's ideological hobbyhorses [ which made bringing the bulk of the Russian population on-side a non-starter ] once committed to War with Russia, if he could not finish off Russia in a quick campaign he was sure to invoke ferocious resistance from the Russians. The large Russian population and the size of the country would then make a decisive victory over the Soviet Union almost impossible and so anything other than a quick and decisive victory over the USSR spelt doom for the Reich, in that Germany would be hard pressed to fight a War against Russia and Britain and would be totally overwhelmed once America's industrial economy was to fully harnessed to military production and the US troops became battle hardened.

Best and Warm Regards
Adrian Wainer

[SS Ouche-Vittes]

britain could of been won if he destroyed the sea ports and the radar stations.

[Churchill]

Then thank the Lord he didn't!

[Nickdfresh]

britain could of been won if he destroyed the sea ports and the radar stations.

Or continued the center of gravity on bombing the RAF aerodromes instead of losing focus to prove a political point by intensifying the attacks on UK population centers....

[pdf27]

britain could of been won if he destroyed the sea ports and the radar stations.

Errr... no. The radar stations were important to minimising RAF attrition, but the point everyone misses about the Battle of Britain was that the RAF were a sideshow. To successfully invade, the Germans had to negate the Royal Navy. The plan to do this was to use the Luftwaffe instead of the Kriegsmarine, on the grounds that the Kriegsmarine had been slapped stupid in the Norwegian campaign (in large part by the Norwegians, it has to be said) and were incapable of meaningfully engaging the RN. Now the problem with this plan is, to quote Blackadder, is the fact that "it was bollocks".
At Dunkirk the Luftwaffe demonstrated that they were only very marginally capable of hitting destroyers which were parked in harbour loading men, and a year after the proposed invasion date they were only marginally capable of engaging moving destroyers during the evacuation of Crete.
Worse still, the Luftwaffe in 1940 didn't have any armour piercing bombs as would be required to engage the RN home fleet, and the number of torpedo carrying aircraft was extremely limited (IIRC to a small number of seaplanes). In practice all the Luftwaffe could do to anything larger than a light cruiser in 1940 is make rude gestures out of the cockpit windows!

Destroying the port infrastructure is valid, but was attempted as part of the Battle of the Atlantic. The Silvertown area of London (the worst hit at the start of the Blitz) was after all the biggest port in the UK at the time. Nonetheless, they still failed to make a strategically significant dent in imports.

[Nickdfresh]

Errr... no. The radar stations were important to minimising RAF attrition, but the point everyone misses about the Battle of Britain was that the RAF were a sideshow. To successfully invade, the Germans had to negate the Royal Navy. The plan to do this was to use the Luftwaffe instead of the Kriegsmarine, on the grounds that the Kriegsmarine had been slapped stupid in the Norwegian campaign (in large part by the Norwegians, it has to be said) and were incapable of meaningfully engaging the RN. Now the problem with this plan is, to quote Blackadder, is the fact that "it was bollocks".
At Dunkirk the Luftwaffe demonstrated that they were only very marginally capable of hitting destroyers which were parked in harbour loading men, and a year after the proposed invasion date they were only marginally capable of engaging moving destroyers during the evacuation of Crete.
Worse still, the Luftwaffe in 1940 didn't have any armour piercing bombs as would be required to engage the RN home fleet, and the number of torpedo carrying aircraft was extremely limited (IIRC to a small number of seaplanes). In practice all the Luftwaffe could do to anything larger than a light cruiser in 1940 is make rude gestures out of the cockpit windows!

Destroying the port infrastructure is valid, but was attempted as part of the Battle of the Atlantic. The Silvertown area of London (the worst hit at the start of the Blitz) was after all the biggest port in the UK at the time. Nonetheless, they still failed to make a strategically significant dent in imports.

I agree to an extent. But if the RAF had been overwhelmed, the Germans could have compensated for the inherent weaknesses in the Kriegsmarine via submarine blockade and possibly through the use the new generation of guided missiles and bombs. Armor piercing bombs are hardly difficult to develop and produce!

I do think a "Sea Lion" attempted without complete neutralization of the Royal Navy would have resulted in tens of thousands of drowned Wehrmacht in the English Channel, and a precarious, at best, beachhead at Dover if not a major victory for the British Army. But if the Luftwaffe had achieved air superiority, all bets were off...

[pdf27]

I agree to an extent. But if the RAF had been overwhelmed, the Germans could have compensated for the inherent weaknesses in the Kriegsmarine via submarine blockade

Nope. U-boats have effectively no capability against targets moving at high speed and zig-zagging unless they get some pretty extraordinary luck. They would have virtually no capability against the Home Fleet, which would be going at ~30kts in and around the channel.

and possibly through the use the new generation of guided missiles and bombs.

Not in 1940!

Armor piercing bombs are hardly difficult to develop and produce!

Yet, despite the plan which calls for the Luftwaffe to neutralise the Royal Navy they didn't produce them. Which suggests either a lack of capability to produce them, that the Luftwaffe was below something else in the priority tree, or they simply didn't appreciate that they needed armour piercing bombs against armoured targets.

I do think a "Sea Lion" attempted without complete neutralization of the Royal Navy would have resulted in tens of thousands of drowned Wehrmacht in the English Channel, and a precarious, at best, beachhead at Dover if not a major victory for the British Army.

It was war-gamed repeatedly after the war at Sandhurst, with the parts largely played by people who had been there at the time. The best the Germans could do was a small enclave near Deal which was effectively starved into submission over the winter.

[Kiwiguy]

http://www.nizkor.org/hweb/people/h/...rofile-06.html

What's your definition of Paranoia Adrian ?

[Adrian Wainer]

http://www.nizkor.org/hweb/people/h/...rofile-06.html

What's your definition of Paranoia Adrian ?

Hi, Paranoia is an ir-rational fear, so that if one was say a US Navy air-sea rescue pilot in the pacific in WW2, it would make sense for one to seek to effect the rescue of ship-wrecked sailors as quickly as possible for amongst other reasons, the threat of shark attack to men in the sea and such a concern could no way said to be paranoid. On the other hand, the story of the person in the Midwestern USA town, who locked themselves in their house, after seeing the Jaws film [ if true ] is a good example of paranoia. Hitler's activities against the Jews in my opinion, do superficially resemble that of a person in a paranoid state but I do not think he was actually afraid of the Jews but merely regarded them as negative e.g. if one has a cockroach infestation in one's house, it does not follow one would be anyway afraid of the cockroaches, one would call in the extermination company and they would get rid of them. NB I am not equating Jews with cockroaches, I am merely trying to put myself in what I was presume was Hitler's way of thinking.

Best and Warm Regards
Adrian Wainer