The Nazis

Had they not diverted significant forces to the caucuses and Stalingrad and had driven onto Moscow as originally intended, despite the bad weather, they could have done it.

Realistically that was their only chance.
 


There are lots of twists and turns that could of changed thing to a degree but eventually the Germans would still likely to have lost as raw resources available to the Allies was far superior and would probably still have tipped the balance in the end.
Anyone interested in how resources effect wars have a look at a series called Bullets, Boots and Bandages.
It’s a 3 part series currently on BBC4.
It’s probably on I player.



There was also the 51st Highland Division who were left behind after Dunkirk to help the French.

Iirc De Gaulle said he could never have gone over to the Vichy government after fighting with the highland division. I’ve just purchased the history of the 51st, will start reading it soon.
 
From what I've read and watched in the past, my understanding is that the Nazis still had a chance of winning (or at least prolonging to the point where peace terms would be struck) even after D-Day. The problem was the cult of Hitler and his obsession with genocide - even to the point where he would be diverting desperately needed fuel and resources from the front to instead support the killing factories.

The Forgotten Soldier is one of the most interesting WW2 books I've read. It is an account at the Eastern front from a German kid. One of the things that stood out when reading it (and it was a good few year ago now) was about their retreat - a tiny portion of the army would stay behind every few miles to slow down the Russian advance. Imagine being part of that group, just waiting for them to come knowing you're already dead.

The forgotten soldier is a brilliant book. Astounding that this all happened 80 years ago in a modern, supposedly civilised Europe.
 
They had ALL the top notch nuclear scientists. What do you think Operation Paperclip was for. Von Braun made the V2, we and the US had nowt even remotely similar. They even had 2 guns that could fire a 7 tonne shell 30 miles.

Schwerer Gustav - Wikipedia

Obsolete before it was even manufactured. Another of Hitler's egomaniacal delusions which wasted resources and man power. Same thing for his wunderwaffens. The lack of a strategic heavy bomber, the attempts to turn jet fighters into Jabos, over engineered tanks when they had access to the best and most easily manufactured tank in the T34 which could have been vastly upgraded with German technical skill, the intrigues and power struggles between party leaders .

For me there's 3 issues which stopped the Nazi's.
1. Failure to knock out/force the surrender of British Empire by late 1940. Not annihilating the BEF in France, followed by the decision to change targets from air bases to cities during the Battle of Britain meant that Britain remained a thorn in Germany's side. It's arguable about whether a sea borne invasion could have happened given the Royal Navy's superiority but the lack of air supremacy made it impossible. Had Britain been knocked out of the war, huge amounts of raw materials from the Empire would likely have flowed into the Reich under any surrender agreement, the oil fields of the middle east would've been under German control and Hitler's Western flank would have been the secured. The knock on effect would have seen the US become even more isolationist and enabled Operation Barbarrossa to take place earlier in 1941, as was planned, due to no campaign in the Balkans and Greece. It might also have seen Spain throw it's hand in with the Axis.
2. Failure to recruit/conscript volunteers at the earliest opportunity from former Soviet republics to fight against the Soviet Union. The Germans were greeted as liberators when they arrived in the western republics of the USSR but Nazi doctrine and the repression it instigated meant that millions of potential recruits were lost who could have provided much need manpower from the very earliest days of Barbarrossa. Instead many who experienced the horror of Nazi rule turned against them becoming partisans. This pool of anti-bolsheviks, along with others from western countries, were only really drawn upon after it was too late. Arguably if they'd been recruited earlier, and Hitler hadn't split his forces to seize the Caucasus oil fields, Moscow would have fell by autumn 1941 due to the earlier timetable for Barbarrossa if point 1 occurred.
3. Germany's failure to go onto an all out war footing after the fall of Poland. German generals had a number of nasty surprises about the quality of their equipment, their lack of motorised transport and the needs of supply during the Polish campaign and this was reinforced during the Battle of France. German tanks and aircraft were found to be lacking when faced with the best the enemy could field and German industry wasn't geared nearly enough to produce the things needed to change this. Britain went straight onto an all out war footing, while German manufacturing didn't.

There's a lot more to it but that'd be my top 3
 
I have always been fascinated by the World Wars. When I was a young lad our neighbour had been in WW1 and family were in WW2. I love all the documentaries about both wars. If we do not know about the past then the same mistakes will be made again and again. The rise of the far-right must always be a concern. The number of lads and lasses that did not come back is a testament to our fight for freedom. God bless them.

Sorry to be a pain.
 
Could they have won the war with proper military strategists in charge, rather than Hitler’s Nazi bum chums?
No, but if they'd been a bit more 'jew' friendly they may have... a couple of Million extra fighting 'men' and the ability to make nukes and a shit ton of cash... all for the promise for a small strip of coastline on the eastern shore of the Med and Jerusalem... Remember the Holocaust Kids,without it your Grandparents may have died.
 
There's some fascinating stuff in Simon Sebag Montefiore's book - Stalin. The Court of the Red Tsar.
Stalin couldn't or wouldn't believe that Hitler would break the peace treaty. He had a breakdown, ran off to his dacha and had to be persuaded back to lead the country.
Of course a lot of the lads who saw him in that state were liquidated later.

PSA: This book is 99p in the Kindle Store.

Cracking thread folks

Class thread this love when the SMB does threads like this. Currently reading a book on Stalingrad by Anthony Beevor. The level of casualties is just mind blowing

His book on the fall of Berlin is good as well.
 
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