Germany overrated in this subsection of the forum?

[Nautilus]

In contrast, Hitler was almost treated as a cult God (Godhood Fantasy). When he said “jump”, the Germans said “how high.” Furthermore, the state he controlled was a Great Power which nearly had the ability to conquer all of Europe and transform into a Superpower. Neither Japan nor Italy had such ability which is why there are far fewer What If scenarios on these two countries. No one wants to be a Japanese ruler or Italian dictator in his fantasy as these countries were junior partners to Germany and they would always lose against the USA/UK. These vessels were inferior.

The basis of any "What If" scenario is to root for the other side winning, especially when Real Life winners were bastards like Stalin, otherwise why bother?

1) to both abandon its alliance with Japan and abandon its racial policies and then persuade the Soviet Union to enter the War on the Axis side

Impossible, for a small logical reason: Hitler had to pay with something to persuade the Soviet government. Which was irrational. He had too few goods they were interested in, while they held all things Hitler might have needed. The disproportion in the quantities of wares which crossed the border each way during the Non-Aggression Pact shows the Soviets were practically bribing Hitler with goods to keep him away. They drew grain from ordinary Soviet people's plate to feed their enemy.

People are sports minded and like to think in terms of 1 vs 1, man to man, or an 11-man team vs an 11-man team (American Football). This inflexible, sheltered thought has little basis in reality. Wars and military campaigns in reality are something like 30 vs 10, 25 vs 9, 50 vs 37, 1000 vs 21 etc. etc.

Nonetheless people still try to make it sporty. Germany vs Soviet Union 1 vs 1 , Japan vs UK, 1 vs 1, Japan vs USA 1 vs 1, Germany and Italy vs UK and USSR 2 vs 2.

Hermann Goering proved he was an inept General when he said during the Nuremberg interviews pre-trial that Germany was forced among three great enemies, each of them could be fought individually. No military commander is ever going to stay still while his enemy builds up his force. The master of What Ifs, S.M. Stirling, conceived the story of his Draka, "the Super-Nazis to scare away the Nazis", based on the idea that a small country can develop technology 100 years ahead of the competition, and none bothers them before the first shot is fired. Nobody spies on them, nobody infiltrates them, nobody sabotages them, nobody tries to invade them - just how many times in history had someone such dumb luck?

[T. A. Gardner]

Well, the "deniers" pretty much deserve to be driven off. I for one don't think that any site profits from Nazi fanboi's who really believe the Nazis were just misguided or something like that.

As far as "What- if's" go there's several recurring variants you run across:

One of the most popular is the Technology wins the day. This is the perennial Me 262, V2, nukes, MP 44, Tiger tanks for every panzer, sort of theme. The originator thinks that their choice of technological advance would have had serious impact on the outcome if only it happened, happened earlier, was reliable, or omits some other flaw. Of course, the Allies are never allowed to react to any of this in any way other than they did historically...

The next sort is the tactical change for a battle. Kursk is a popular topic for example. Rommel in North Africa another. Seelöwe is probably the most beaten to death of these, followed by the Battle of Britain and Pearl Harbor. This theme usually revolves around changes in the original battle plan or is one of "If they just had a bit more stuff there..." These have some merit but won't dramatically change the war's outcome.

These two usually get beaten to death in minute detail. The value in them is that some of the posts will contain information that is really informative details about some aspect of the technology or battle discussed that otherwise might not get any attention. That's a good thing.

Then there's the grand strategy ones: Germany doesn't invade the Soviet Union, the US stays out of the war, that sort of thing. These are harder to judge and respond to as you are now talking about whole nations doing things they didn't historically.

These tend to devolve into "Liar's poker." That is, it's hard to prove what might or might not happen and this increases as the subject moves away from its historical deviation point.

The last category are the bat$h!+ crazy ones that leave you saying "You can't be serious...?!"

These can be entertaining for a minute as they are so off the wall silly that you can laugh at them.

One other thing of note is that there are recurring "favorites" and if you bring up some esoteric, or obscure topic for discussion it usually goes nowhere because the majority of posters seemingly know nothing about it and aren't willing to go look up and study the subject for discussion. Instead, it gets a half-dozen desultory posts then disappears.

[maltesefalcon]

. Huge errors in Allied planning and inept Allied field commanders created an atmosphere that the Wehrmacht was more powerful than it really was.

This is not correct : one should never underestimate one's enemies .

Agreed but one should also not overpraise the enemy, as an excuse for failure. McLellan made this mistake in the US Civil War and it cost him his job.

My post above was mostly geared to the 1940 campaign, where the power of the German mobility and PZ forces was greatly exaggerated by inept Allied commanders of the time. Once the breakthrough at Sedan occured, they assumed the worst and began plans for withdrawal instead of counterattack.

By 1941-1942 events in Africa and Eastern front showed the weaknesses that could be exploited in the seemingly invincible Wehrmacht.

[BDV]

Read through this forum and there seems to be a fair few threads stating if Germany was leagues ahead of other countries and if they had a particular weapon etc they'd instantly win.

Now hold yer hasty over-generalization horsies over there, par'dner.

Care to gheeeve some, ahem, eg-samples, of this such "fair few threads stating if Germany ... had a particular weapon etc they'd instantly win" thing you allude to?

[glenn239]

Read through this forum and there seems to be a fair few threads stating if Germany was leagues ahead of other countries and if they had a particular weapon etc they'd instantly win.

Now hold yer hasty over-generalization horsies over there, par'dner.

Care to gheeeve some, ahem, eg-samples, of this such "fair few threads stating if Germany ... had a particular weapon etc they'd instantly win" thing you allude to?

There's all sorts of threads and topics on jet fighters, Type XXI submarines, etc. that mean to suggest an impact on the trajectory of the war. I recall fewer threads where it was suggested that a particular weapon could win the war outright, (A-bomb excepted).

I have noticed an attitude that if the Axis didn't historically conquer X city or Y island, or Z country, then it could never have done so. Depending on the particular topic, this attitude can range from quite reasonable to religious dogma. Often friction so arises when the chances of AH X happening are actually reasonable, but the believe in an Axis 'maximum crest' doesn't allow for any more success in the direction being discussed. As an example, if question is Moscow posters can reasonably discuss the possibility of it falling, (even while projecting it won't matter to the outcome of the war). But if its Egypt, the discussion gets more dogmatic, less reasonable, (even though its fall doesn't impact the outcome of the war).

So, with wanks, a real wank is like, ('The Type XXI would have one the war!). But a reasonable discussion can offend sensibilities about the Axis achieving more than acceptable, (Could Rommel have taken Cairo?).

[Phaing]

If you are not a fan, ANYthing can look over-rated.

(and no, I don't mean a nazi-fan, jeez)

[pintere]

One other thing of note is that there are recurring "favorites" and if you bring up some esoteric, or obscure topic for discussion it usually goes nowhere because the majority of posters seemingly know nothing about it and aren't willing to go look up and study the subject for discussion. Instead, it gets a half-dozen desultory posts then disappears.

That is one thing I for one would like to see change.

Anything in particular come to mind??

[Nautilus]

There's all sorts of threads and topics on jet fighters, Type XXI submarines, etc. that mean to suggest an impact on the trajectory of the war. I recall fewer threads where it was suggested that a particular weapon could win the war outright, (A-bomb excepted).

(...)

So, with wanks, a real wank is like, ('The Type XXI would have one the war!). But a reasonable discussion can offend sensibilities about the Axis achieving more than acceptable, (Could Rommel have taken Cairo?).

Winning could have meant plenty of things in 1942-1944 years.

Actual winning of the war as originally planned was no longer possible after the winter of 1941. The grand strategy of the Bewegungskrieg had been stopped dead in its tracks. It aimed to conquer the major population and industrial centers of the enemy, therefore to place him in a position when war becomes untenable. Moscow or Leningrad could no longer be taken by force and no German General planned for it, while invading the major population centers in Britain of the USA was impossible. It's impossible even in modern, nuclear age.

The Generals were fully convinced of that even as the autumn of 1941 unfolded. They were neither stupid, nor unrealistic.

Rationally, if outright victory could not be gained, they aimed for a secondary victory. As General Clausewitz (whose writings were required reading back then as they are now for military leaders) said: "The duration is to be regarded, to a certain extent, as a second subordinate success. For the conqueror the combat can never be finished too quickly, for the vanquished it can never last too long. A speedy victory indicates a higher power of victory, a tardy decision is, on the side of the defeated, some compensation for the loss."

Which meant that even if one side is in a losing position, the defeated can still inflict so much damage on the enemy over so much time, to make him retreat and leave part of the spoils in their hands.

Either by raiding his sea trade routes with modern U-Boats, blasting his cities with one or more atomic bombs, entrapping his armies as planned in Kursk, to deprive hims of troops and equipment. Each campaign before Bagration aimed to make so much damage that one or more of the Allied leaders would sue for peace.

[ljadw]

. Huge errors in Allied planning and inept Allied field commanders created an atmosphere that the Wehrmacht was more powerful than it really was.

This is not correct : one should never underestimate one's enemies .

Agreed but one should also not overpraise the enemy, as an excuse for failure. McLellan made this mistake in the US Civil War and it cost him his job.

My post above was mostly geared to the 1940 campaign, where the power of the German mobility and PZ forces was greatly exaggerated by inept Allied commanders of the time. .

I am not convinced that the Allied commanders of thr time (Gamelin,Gort ) were inept,nor that the German commanders were genius .

I still have to see the proofs that (without hindsight ) there was another French strategy (the Allied strategy was the French strategy ) possible that would have avoided the Allied defeat .

[ljadw]

Which meant that even if one side is in a losing position, the defeated can still inflict so much damage on the enemy over so much time, to make him retreat and leave part of the spoils in their hands.

Either by raiding his sea trade routes with modern U-Boats, blasting his cities with one or more atomic bombs, entrapping his armies as planned in Kursk, to deprive hims of troops and equipment. Each campaign before Bagration aimed to make so much damage that one or more of the Allied leaders would sue for peace.

These are only illusions : UK would fight as long the US would fight and the US would fight as long as UK would fight,and as Germany could do nothing against the US .....

Germany had no atomic bombs and the atomic bombs did not decide the outcome of the war . The U Boats could not force Britain to give up .

About Kursk : there was no chance that if the SU was defeated at Kursk, it would give up .

[Nautilus]

Very much true, but also the only thing they could gamble on. All others dissipated once the Bewegungskrieg ceased to work. For Hitler personally it was the chance to deal as much damage for the opponents to negotiate part of the spoils (keep some of the territories conquered, for example, extort some indemnity from conquered Western European countries in exchange for their freedom and so on). As for the professional Generals and Field Marshals it was the chance to negotiate their immunity / honorable retirement. While they were already very rich and they took every opportunity to increase their wealth by most unsavoury means. As the events of 1944-1946 show, survival was a form of secondary victory in itself.

[Aber]

Comrades helped him in this. There are different opinions on the mechanisms of the Second World War. Hitler outplayed intellectually. He worked in an area over which many could only laugh ...

There seems to be a particularly Russian view about the hyper-effectiveness of the British Intelligence services...

[jesk]

There seems to be a particularly Russian view about the hyper-effectiveness of the British Intelligence services...

This is primarily an Anglo-Saxon point of view. The population of the United States is 325 million, the United Kingdom is 65 million. How many people - so many opinions. Hitler lost the war, including for the liberalism of opinions.

[ljadw]

Hitler lost the war.

NO : the Allies won him .

[jesk]

Hitler lost the war.

NO : the Allies won him .

The US failed to defeat North Korea in three years. Before that, six months fought on the tiny Iwo Jima, Okinawa. December 19, 1941 Hitler became commander of the land forces, replacing Brauchitsch at the post. From that moment, any group could defeat Germany. Even the weakest.