When did Hitler realise/acknowledge defeat

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David1819
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Re: When did Hitler realise/acknowledge defeat

#31

Post by David1819 » 30 Aug 2014, 15:55

Graeme Sydney wrote:There are none so blind as those who don't want to see :roll: .
Watch this

http://youtu.be/IaWTDzR1mRI?t=43m10s

I have set the link to start at 43min into the documentary its only the final part that is relevant to our discussion.

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BDV
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Re: When did Hitler realise/acknowledge defeat

#32

Post by BDV » 01 Sep 2014, 01:32

David1819 wrote:I just realised that we might not get a solid answer to this.

Did Hitler ever mention such a thing or along the lines of defeat to his inner circle or generals and have they noted it down in diary's or other notes to prove it? I did read somewhere that Hitler mentioned to Erwin Rommel in 1943 that "the war has been militarily lost" but I made no effort to conform or verify the claim as I considered it was a bit suspect. but if anyone has any primary information such as that please share.

Other than that all we can do is speculate :(

well, given that he maneuvered the "ship of state" until the end, one can say that he acknowledged complete defeat when he committed suicide.
Nobody expects the Fallschirm! Our chief weapon is surprise; surprise and fear; fear and surprise. Our 2 weapons are fear and surprise; and ruthless efficiency. Our *3* weapons are fear, surprise, and ruthless efficiency; and almost fanatical devotion


David1819
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Re: When did Hitler realise/acknowledge defeat

#33

Post by David1819 » 02 Sep 2014, 19:22

This might be interesting to look into

According to a documentary about Rommel on the History channel many years ago when it actually was a channel about history
One of Rommel's staff officers said Rommel went to see Hitler after El Alamein and Stalingrad. Rommel told Hitler point blank "The war is lost!" Hitler supposedly replied, "I'm not stupid! Don't you think I know that? My only hope is to negotiate from a position of strength!"
Hitler did hint on the possibility of losing the war on several times like "If I cannot get the Caucasus oil we´re lost"
http://www.ww2f.com/topic/19161-one-of- ... l-alamein/
When the Red Army launched its devastating counteroffensive on December 5, Hitler himself realized that he would lose the war. But of course he was not prepared to let the German public know that. The nasty tidings from the front near Moscow were presented to the public as a temporary setback, blamed on the supposedly unexpectedly early arrival of winter and/or on the incompetence or cowardice of certain commanders
http://www.globalresearch.ca/70-years-a ... r-ii/28059

sandeepmukherjee196
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Re: When did Hitler realise/acknowledge defeat

#34

Post by sandeepmukherjee196 » 02 Dec 2014, 14:55

Hi Everyone,

People are ready to believe any and everything about Hitler. There was a time when he was at his peak, when many people thought he could do no wrong! After the cataclysmic defeat of Germany, as the decades have gone by, he has been invested with diabolical features.. people are ready to believe any and everything about him.

But the fact remains that he was not stupid and had extraordinary qualities of mind and instinct... as well as a strong backbone. A lot of what he publicly said was for purposes of propaganda, morale building and motivating others.

As someone above quoted Rommel, it is quite possible that Hitler had acknowledged after Stalingrad and El Alamein that the war was militarily lost and he was playing for a position of strength to negotiate. He is on record as saying during the battle of the Bulge that " if we dont succeed ..I dont see any more chance of ending the war well for us.."

Hitler and his close coterie had a dread of internal strife and mutiny in Germany a la 1918.. So they were hell bent on maintaining discipline and generating hope...howsoever absurd after a certain point. All the talk of wonder weapons and magical solutions was partly motivated by the imperative to maintain a public posture of Hope.

Once he knew for sure that defeat is inevitable, after the failed Ardennes Offensive, it was just sheer bloody mindedness and frustrated rage at the world at large that kept him going till the bitter end. It certainly wasnt any hope of victory any more.

Ciao
Sandeep

Graeme Sydney
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Re: When did Hitler realise/acknowledge defeat

#35

Post by Graeme Sydney » 04 Dec 2014, 00:33

Now that a 'dangerous' article, and typical of the dangers of the internet - anyone can publish.

The article is half right and half wrong. It looks impressive with notes etc but it has cheery picked facts and has a very narrow focus in time and space and comes to erroneous conclusions.

The author has propounded and perpetuates all the common myths which have been lampooned and countered on this forum in detail over the years. (I won't counter argue any of it - too big an issue and it been done here),

I'm not certain if the author was 'working to an agenda' or just made the common mistake of been underinformed of a very large and very complex subject that has muddied over the years by all sorts of agendas, motivations, misinformation, lack of info and misinterpretation of info.

Graeme Sydney
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Re: When did Hitler realise/acknowledge defeat

#36

Post by Graeme Sydney » 04 Dec 2014, 01:55

sandeepmukherjee196 wrote: People are ready to believe any and everything about Hitler.
I disagree with your opening premise. It might be correct to say 'some people' or even 'most people' but it is certainly not all people.

sandeepmukherjee196 wrote: After the cataclysmic defeat of Germany, as the decades have gone by, he has been invested with diabolical features..
In 1939-45 about 3/4 of Europe thought Hitler was the Devil incarnate - but only because he was. Hitler would be less loathed today compared to 39-45.
sandeepmukherjee196 wrote:........ people are ready to believe any and everything about him.
There's that sweeping statement again. You really should make a distinction between the popular view of history and the informed view.
sandeepmukherjee196 wrote:But the fact remains that he was not stupid and had extraordinary qualities of mind and instinct... as well as a strong backbone.
I don't think I've read too often that Hitler was stupid; mad yes, stupid no. Hitler has been diagnosed as pathological narcissistic - clinically insane.

If when you say "had extraordinary qualities of mind and instinct" you mean "extraordinary" you mean very rare than you would be right. If you mean "extraordinary" you mean extraordinary in a positive sense such as marvelous, wonderful, sensational, stunning, or incredible, you would be wrong or at least inexact and misleading.
sandeepmukherjee196 wrote: A lot of what he publicly said was for purposes of propaganda, morale building and motivating others.
I don't think there is much that Hitler ever said that was for pure propaganda purposes. That is not to say it wasn't used for propaganda but it wasn't said for propaganda, morale building and motivating others.

When Hitler said 'it was Germany's destiny to be great' in his mind he meant that 'it was his destiny to be great'. In Hitler's psychotic mind the two were inexorably linked. Which is what made him such a great orator and leader - he was absolutely certain and clear in his own mind and had manic (literally) determination to be obeyed.

The other thing that made Hitler a a great orator and leader was his concentration, breath of knowledge and memory. Hitler's contemporaries and associates spoke of his ability to talk for hours at dinner parties etc (without interruption :wink: :roll: ). But insanity refers to the faulty way information is interpreted and resolved into a World View. And Hitler's World View was very faulty; from 1912 and earlier his World View was very faulty.

Stupid refers to intelligent, ignorant, dense, brainless, mindless, foolish, dull-witted, slow-witted, witless, and Hitler certainly wasn't any of that, indeed in some attributes like recall he was probably on the upper echelons of human performance.

sandeepmukherjee196 wrote:Hitler and his close coterie had a dread of internal strife and mutiny in Germany a la 1918.. So they were hell bent on maintaining discipline and generating hope...howsoever absurd after a certain point. All the talk of wonder weapons and magical solutions was partly motivated by the imperative to maintain a public posture of Hope.
There were many different reasons and motivations for the nation and the individual to keep fighting, from fatalism, to fear of retribution. to just fear, to 'no alternative' and others.

But when Hitler spoke of Wonder Weapons and the destiny of ultimate victory he had absolute belief in what he said (if his cohorts or the Germany public believed is a different matter). When Hitler committed suicide there was obvious acceptance of failure (but if was seen by him as not his failure but the failure of the German people), and there was also an obvious transition to this acceptance. I'm not quite certain when the transition started but it can clearly be seen in his cycle a depression in the last months of the war,
sandeepmukherjee196 wrote:Once he knew for sure that defeat is inevitable, after the failed Ardennes Offensive, it was just sheer bloody mindedness and frustrated rage at the world at large that kept him going till the bitter end. It certainly wasnt any hope of victory any more.
At the end Hitler ordered the total destruction of Germany not to deny the enemy but as punishment to the Germany people because they had failed in meeting their destiny and in his and their own theory of Master Race they didn't deserve to survive. (But in his mind meaning they had failed him and his destiny.) That wasn't "sheer bloody mindedness and frustrated rage" that was criminal insanity.

flakbait
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Re: When did Hitler realise/acknowledge defeat

#37

Post by flakbait » 04 Dec 2014, 11:12

Saddam Hussain supposedly just before the beginning of Desert Storm told his foreign minister "If every Iraqi must die so I remain in power that is acceptable..." Obviously a very similar mind set...The `Glorious Dear Leader" of North Korea is another likely example. All were/ are completely a-moral inhumane extroverted narcissistic meglamaniacs with basically unlimited ambitions so long as they are permitted to be unopposed...

Alixanther
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Re: When did Hitler realise/acknowledge defeat

#38

Post by Alixanther » 04 Dec 2014, 13:26

flakbait wrote:Saddam Hussain supposedly just before the beginning of Desert Storm told his foreign minister "If every Iraqi must die so I remain in power that is acceptable..." Obviously a very similar mind set...The `Glorious Dear Leader" of North Korea is another likely example. All were/ are completely a-moral inhumane extroverted narcissistic meglamaniacs with basically unlimited ambitions so long as they are permitted to be unopposed...
Off-topic. I got posts deleted for less than that.

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