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Posted: 1/8/2005 6:20:25 PM EDT
[#1]
Russia
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Posted: 1/8/2005 6:20:56 PM EDT
[#2]
Yea, that part underlined would just be great. 
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Posted: 1/8/2005 6:23:28 PM EDT
[#3]
Actually Russia and Germany would have come to blows sooner or later. Stalin had goals of Westward expansion. |
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Posted: 1/8/2005 6:35:01 PM EDT
[#4]
I'm extremely offended by your derogatory use of the k-word! I demand this thread be trashed and the OP's account locked immediately! I'm telling my mommy! WAAAAA WAAAAA WAAAAA
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Posted: 1/8/2005 6:37:03 PM EDT
[#5]
Too easy; #4.
Hitler needed the resources of the Soviet Union to prosecute the war but his invasion of Russia was premature. Had he taken Britain out of the war first, it would have delayed the main allied invasion by years. The forces Hitler committed to the Russian campaign could have held the allies in Southern Europe and Normandy indefinitely if they weren't bogged down on the Eastern Front. What's amazing is that the Wehrmacht lasted as long as it did. The tenacity of their fighting retreat against a vastly superior Red Army is studied by students of military history to this day. |
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Posted: 1/8/2005 6:38:49 PM EDT
[#6]
Because they took on the whole world at one time. (minus Italy and the Japs)
Think about that for a minute. The real question is how the hell did they get as far as they did. The fatal miscalculation was underestimating the Russians, and the British, and the Americans. 
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Posted: 1/8/2005 6:57:20 PM EDT
[#7]
Hitler was their biggest problem. My stepfather was a combat veteran of the ETO and one big battlefield problem they had was predictability. They could not seem to abandon the Tactical Field Manual. They could be set up for a loss.
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Posted: 1/8/2005 7:08:35 PM EDT
[#8]
One item of note while the U.S. manufactured close to 55,000 sherman tanks, the Germans only produced something like under 10,000 tanks period.
Also in four years we built over a dozen Essex class carries, over 3 dozen smaller "jeep" carriers. We also out produced the entire world in aircraft production. Also we where the only ones who could afford to develop,built and use the Atom bomb and the aircraft to deliver it. In the end the outcome was more than likey already cast in stone. The industrial out put of America could arm and rearm our army and the armies of any of our allies. ( In the evnt of England being defeated there was Canada, and China, and others.) I'm surprised that the Germans did as good as they did with their lesser industrial out put and the fact that we where reading their top secret messages. |
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Posted: 1/8/2005 7:40:59 PM EDT
[#9]
I'd say Hitler and arrogance. Hitler made a number of very costly mistakes. Stalingrad was one.
Taking a sleeping pill and putting out the do not disturb sign the night before D-Day was another. Ordering his troops not to retreat an inch in France was another big one. Had he let them make a long drawn out fighting retreat many more Americans would have been killed. Instead once we broke their lines it was a mad dash across the French county side. I disagree with the part about attacking Russia as being the mistake. They feared that unless they attacked in 1941 the Russians would be prepared for an attack in 1942 or they might even attack Germany. What really f*cked it up for them was Yugoslavia. They had to spend 6 or 8 weeks bailing out Mussolini's ass because the Italian army sucked so bad it couldn’t conquer the county. Now they were screwed. After all the preparations they'd made for the invasion, the Russians would eventually find out and get ready for an attack. So they felt they had to go. The loss of 6-8 weeks of good weather meant that they could not capture Moscow or Leningrad before winter. With the extra time they may have defeated the Russians in 1941 or at least put the Russians in such a bad position that victory was posible. The thing that scares me the most about the German defeat is that they had more advanced but more complex equipment than their enemies. They got cocky because it and their well trained men performed so well in the early conflicts. Then problems producing and maintaining the equipment, the long supply lines and trouble fielding enough quality soldiers were significant factors in their defeat. |
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Posted: 1/8/2005 7:49:24 PM EDT
[#10]
In think your right but without England as a staging area the war would have been so much more difficult. We would have had to send troops to fight in Russian or maybe attempt to use North Africa as a staging area. Neither idea is very appealing. |
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Posted: 1/8/2005 7:52:27 PM EDT
[#11]
Logistics
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Posted: 1/8/2005 8:03:05 PM EDT
[#12]
Not taking out britain before attacking Russia. Britain was an unsinkable aircraft carrier and supply depot for the US. Not reading a freaking history book and being prepared for the russian winter. |
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Posted: 1/8/2005 8:07:54 PM EDT
[#13]
Im going to have to politely disagree with you on yugoslavia being any kind of hindrance to the germans. The Italians for instance, contributed almost nothing to the german war machine, and its puppet government did almost nothing to slow the american advance. There was no bailing out of the italians in any sense, other than the failed jump into crete...and technically, crete has nothing to do with italy, other than being a defensive landmark. The whole italian campaign or the "third front" was occupied by less than 10% of germany's divisions. It was an inconsequential front at best. Yugoslavia was "liberated" by the Russians. Romania had been allied with the germans, but quickly "made peace" with stalin as his forces came near. Romania (ruminia) had a coupe, tito....whole bunch of crap goin on. But the main point is, it was the staggering losses on the eastern front that ultimately doomed hitler and the plan of world domination. The massive loss of men and equipment broke the nazi war machines back. All the stupid little decisions hitler made, were just that, stupid little decisions....technological usage, research...he had his hands in stuff thats best left to experts. I agree with others in that if Hitler had left decisions up to the really brilliant military leaders (see: rommel) then he would have been able to pull off so much more. In 1939 he had the strongest military in the world, by far. All he needed was a Patton to lead it.... |
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Posted: 1/8/2005 8:08:31 PM EDT
[#14]
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Posted: 1/8/2005 8:22:15 PM EDT
[#15]
Hitler. Had great generals, but they followed his orders, as great generals do.
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Posted: 1/8/2005 8:26:06 PM EDT
[#16]
Because, among other things, Hitler was a micro-managing control freak...
And also because he tried to go too far too fast. |
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Posted: 1/8/2005 8:26:21 PM EDT
[#17]
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Posted: 1/8/2005 8:34:49 PM EDT
[#18]
1. Hitler, especially his refusal to retreat from Soviet counterattacks at and after Stalingrad, and hesitating to move the bulk of Western Europe troops out of Pas de Calais after the Allies landed in Normandy. He thought it was a feint, not the main invasion force. Maybe he could have beat them back across the Channel if he had counterattacked immediately.
2. German production was slower, higher quality 3. No heavy bombers to strike Soviet production beyond the Urals. 4. The Allies were able to overcome the U-boats in the Battle of the Atlantic using convoy tactics, aircraft, and breaking the Enigma Code. |
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Posted: 1/8/2005 8:36:10 PM EDT
[#19]
They got VERY close to taking Moscow before the wx got too bad. If they has taken the city (the hub of Russia's rail net) that would have been the ens of it. ***** Also: they had to bail Italy out of their disasterous attack on Greece. If the Germans had not intervened there, Barbarossa would have been launched six weeks earlier, thus beating the Russian winter. |
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Posted: 1/8/2005 8:42:06 PM EDT
[#20]
Really good question Samsong! It is pretty amazing after studying WWII pretty much all my life that there were so many things that went on in that war. I would say that Hitler would be the single most cause of thier defeat.On an non-spiritual stand point that is,God made sure they lost. Hitler was the one who would not listen to what his Generals were telling him. After being gassed in WWI and contracting syphillis, I have no doubt that he was quite literally insane even before he came to power. It just got worse from there. (The other thing to remember was the Japanese gave us one hell of a fight with weapons that were far less effective than ours. Well, let me put it in other terms. The stuff the Japanese had to fight with,if they would have had better quality weapons, we may have lost WWII.) Fortunatly, (and obviously) we had everything to our advantage. Resources of course played the major role in us winning. Look at everything we had. Men,machines,money.Geographical location,iron,rubber,fuel it all comes down to resources.We had more. And that includes the fighting spirit of our nation.Thank you for a brief history lesson! Take care.
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Posted: 1/8/2005 8:47:42 PM EDT
[#21]
Hitler, He should have trusted his Generals
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Posted: 1/8/2005 8:49:40 PM EDT
[#22]
Trains full of Jews going to be executed as opposed to supplies for the troops.
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Posted: 1/8/2005 9:07:42 PM EDT
[#23]
Hitler's generals were too cautious and would never have launched the war without his prodding.
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Posted: 1/8/2005 9:17:14 PM EDT
[#24]
Had Hitler made peace with England after the Battle of France, Germany would be in control of lands touching both oceans. The Russian campaign basically overwhelmed the Nazis with sheer numbers and the T-34. Had Hitler listened to his generals, the long fighting retreat would have stopped in the Ukraine.
Hitler was a tweaker, a satanist, and likely insane. He was also a vegetarian, decorated war hero, VERY kind to children, and did not marry until the last days of his life. I wish that I had lived thru such times. Ops |
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Posted: 1/8/2005 9:33:01 PM EDT
[#25]
+1 He was a big part of it. Their is also: in no particular order Declaring war on two fronts Stalling the development of the ME-262 Norwegian resistance destroying their nuclear arms development in it's infancy. High percentage of their educated scientists being Jewish (fled, executed, or just not utilized) Japan not declaring war on Russia The battle of Britain Russian battle tactics (winning by shere numbers) Lack of a true heavy bomber Lagging development of radar Decreasing support of German people over time The british cracking the various ENIGMA codes Maybe I missed one chime in if I did! |
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Posted: 1/8/2005 9:42:13 PM EDT
[#26]
Here's one: The Germans had infra-red illuminators and optics in 1941. The tech was set aside by the conservative German generals because shooting men in the dark was considered "unsporting". Later they changed their minds but it was too late of course... |
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Posted: 1/8/2005 9:42:26 PM EDT
[#27]
This made me laugh out loud, and hard.  You owe me one Icehouse and one keyboard. Thanks a lot, signed The (K-word) Hater! Samsong BTW, I was obliged to change the title of the thread.  BWAAA HAAA HAAAA HAAAA!!!
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Posted: 1/8/2005 9:51:21 PM EDT
[#28]
While I wholeheartedly agree with your last statement, your first statement seems *generous.* The air war was a miserable failure for Germany after 1943, and superior allied air power proved to be the defining advantage of the campaign on the Western Front from the a year before the invasion clear to VE Day. More troops on the ground would have meant more targets for the already hungry allied fighters and bombers, and would have been easy pickin's for them. I think the end result would have been more of the same, with the western allies talking a 35% greater hit for casualties than they did - and a possible extension of the war by 4 months or so. Sadly there would have been more gold stars in Americas windows at VE day. 
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Posted: 1/8/2005 9:54:30 PM EDT
[#29]
I have read and heard from many war veterans about the "train-schedule-like" predictability of the 
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Posted: 1/8/2005 10:09:30 PM EDT
[#30]
Thier entire country was about the size of Nebraska, they just did not have the natural resources to draw from to keep the industrial war machine going.
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Posted: 1/8/2005 10:14:30 PM EDT
[#31]
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Posted: 1/8/2005 10:15:46 PM EDT
[#32]
I'm 100% Greek (and because I was born in Illinois, Land of the AR, 100% American ['Merkin,' as the lefties love to refer to it]), I definitely believe that the peoples of Greece, Albania, and Serbia created such a muther-luvin' Pile o' Feces for My Good Friend Hitler, that it was forever a thorn in his shitty little side. One of my buddies in Atlanta is half Albanian, half Greek, and his daddy, a child during the Resistance, told me that his people tied up TEN DIVISIONS in the Baltic region. Not only did this piss Hitler off, it crippled his efforts in Russia and France as the war saw its fifth and sixth years - where he had less and less means to deal with troublesome little countries. Mom and Aunt Georgia used to tell me about how they ran from Stukas, how Kalavrita, a village near hers, was stripped of its men and boys, and how they were machinegunned. Georgia carried Mom away from this tragedy (she was a hero, this tough, sweet old Greek lady with the thick accent), and my second cousin was hung as a teenager for suspected acts of resistance. I'm a gun owner because of these very acts - Hitler, twenty years after his death and my birth, made me into a Rifleman, able to defend my family and my nation against people like him. I think that we should continue to tell our children about the war - about sacrifices made by good and humble citizen soldiers to defend their land against tyrants. We need to do this so that there are no more opportunities for tyrants to take power and do unrighteous and harmful things. |
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Posted: 1/8/2005 10:19:21 PM EDT
[#33]
No matter what they did or didn't do they could not have won.
They are lucky they did lose or the first atomic bomb would have been detonated in Berlin. End of story. On a related note Japan is ALSO damn lucky we dropped an atomic bomb on them. It spared them a half century of communist partition or domination. Simply if we did go forward with a mainland invasion Stalin would have IMMEDIATELY invaded Hokkaido in the north and much like Korea and Vietnam there would be a north and south Japan with communists in the North. Only the bomb kept Stalin out of Japan. |
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Posted: 1/8/2005 10:21:21 PM EDT
[#34]
They really spread themselve too thin.
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Posted: 1/8/2005 10:24:33 PM EDT
[#35]
14.) any country that created the chicken dance NEVER had a chance at world domination. |
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Posted: 1/8/2005 10:33:20 PM EDT
[#36]
Thanks.  The resources issue is a curious one - our enemies attacked lands that possessed the resources they needed to further their war efforts. We had resources, all we needed, in fact, at our disposal. When their lifeline to their resources was attacked, they became less-abled to fight; our resources were beyond their means of attack. Youda thunk somebody'd a-looked at this BEFORE they started a war, but nooooo.Weird. |
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Posted: 1/8/2005 10:38:11 PM EDT
[#37]
Your last paragraph is an interesting comment; entirely accurate, and at its heart disturbing. He was also an animal lover.  I love animals, so that gives me the creeps.  The meth-thing was a sure-fire debit in the personality column, and anytime you make truck with Satan (and I believe that he did, and often) then you are going to experience an *impediment to your success* as they say in the corporate world.
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Posted: 1/8/2005 10:41:09 PM EDT
[#38]
All superb responses. Perhaps I show my simplistic thinking in asking the question, "what is the single biggest cause..." Something so complex a series of events as Germany's loss of WWII could never have a simple root cause.
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Posted: 1/8/2005 10:44:19 PM EDT
[#39]
Because they were evil.....and good will always triumph over evil.
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Posted: 1/8/2005 11:06:59 PM EDT
[#40]
Yeah, its just too bad it takes millions of lives to finally get it over with! |
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Posted: 1/8/2005 11:08:13 PM EDT
[#41]
Fighting two large fronts.
If they didn't invade Russia...they'd've won. |
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Posted: 1/9/2005 12:26:26 AM EDT
[#42]
First, #4. Russia was a mistake until until operation Sealion was finished. (England)
If he had taken england, the U.S. would have had no jump off point for the continent. Japan getting greedy and hitting us too soon. if Japan had hit the carriers, we would have 49 states right now. Hitler's addiction to amphetamines and his deteriorating mental state didnt help. |
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Posted: 1/9/2005 12:37:36 AM EDT
[#43]
A solid +1 |
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Posted: 1/9/2005 12:37:39 AM EDT
[#44]
Ah, but General Feuctinger had orders to release the armor without Hitlers orders. He was drunk at a party in Paris.
The retreat was ineveitable. Many parts of the Atlantic wall were non-existant. They were not deployed correctly for the invasion at that location. Once the 352ns infanry division was worn into the ground only the panzer reserves, the paras and the 322nd division were of any quality in the area. Mute point though, the war was lost by this point anyways. |
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Posted: 1/9/2005 12:56:45 AM EDT
[#45]
Personally, I think Hitler could have done it. Hitler wouldn't have dared invade mainland US, because he knew he couldn't win, just like Yamamoto, but for different reasons. America would have fought Japan alone, because Germany would reneg on their treaty, and there would be a tense stalemate between us and Nazi Germany until about 1948, in my estimation. Around that point, tensions would rise enough for us to launch one hell of a two-front war from Alaska, China, and about half of Russia, and in Africa or the UK. A 3-front war to include Africa and the ME wouldn't be out of the question, if we were strong enough. Unfortunately, Germany would have the bomb by then, and probably a long-range jet bomber by then. In that conflict, I see New York and DC being toast. |
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Posted: 1/9/2005 1:19:03 AM EDT
[#46]
come on, you should know this from the adventures of BJ Blaskowicz, it is because he lost the spear of destiny/ the thing that pierced the side of christ.
wolf 3d forever! |
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Posted: 1/9/2005 1:41:09 AM EDT
[#47]
All of the above + a very bad organisation of production.
Before Speer germany was not in a war economy. Compare the 1941 production numbers (with a germany at full strenght and maximum geographical extension) and in 1944 (with industries and communications leveled by the bomber command and air force,and allied at the gates). The 1944 production numbers should be 5 or 6 X bigger. At the beggining of barbarossa the german army was just recovering from the losses of 1940. There was no more tanks for barbarossa than for the invasion of france. |
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Posted: 1/9/2005 1:47:07 AM EDT
[#48]
I was going to post my understanding of the question, but by now I would be repeating what has already been discussed.
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Posted: 1/9/2005 2:15:33 AM EDT
[#49]
Well folks, you are all wrong.
 CW |
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Posted: 1/9/2005 3:06:29 AM EDT
[#50]
OOh look....a fancy typewriter.... Had the discovering of the enigma machine/codebreaking done THAT big of a difference in the ETO, the war would have been over years earlier. The only difference ive seen in research has been breaking the enigma machine code helped us track down Uboats.... and that was 1941-42 when we were sending supplies over to uncle stalin and GBR...not when we were sending soldiers....the ones that tipped the balance, and won the war... Enigma capture/codebreaking did little to influence the actual outcome of the war. Hitlers intelligence organisation was always a joke...as is proven in the romanian revolt....the SS was taken totally by suprise when romania turned against his forces in 1943... |
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