World War 2: Empire or Freedom Creation Thread

[Ingvar VII]

I get the impression from you and Curt that you are somewhat influenced by post war propaganda; That the whole affair was "two evil Empires(Germany&Japan) trying to take over the world". I won't even get into trying to dispute this absurd belief. Don't get the wrong idea here-i'm not trying to demean anybody.

Can you explain how you read this out of their posts?

I would think it prudent of you to be more coherent when you have statements such as this one.

 

[Palaiologos2]

Germany would not only have won WW2 easily, but could build a near-invincible Axis empire. And perhaps eventually Hitler would have been in a position to conquer the world.?

Exact quote.
Moreover i tend to choose my words very carefully.
I said "somewhat influenced".

 

[CurtSibling]

Naturally, Palaiologos is not influenced by his own country's post-war propaganda...No, sir!

To be honest, I have always held that WW2 was the great showdown between the democratic fascism, european fascism and soviet fascism.

.

 

[CurtSibling]

Exact quote.
Moreover i tend to choose my words very carefully.
I said "somewhat influenced".

And what was Germany's intention in WW2, if not to build an unbeatable empire?

You are not going to wheel out that old chestnut of them defending Europe from Stalin's aggression?

 

[CurtSibling]

I have an idea!

Palaiologos, could you suggest a proper setting for Alsbron's post-war scenario?
Given that we have to accept the possibility of Germany coming out of it with a winning position.

I would be interested to see your perpective...

 

[Palaiologos2]

Actually my nation's propaganda is too clumsy and flamboyant(unfortunately) to influence any proper history researcher.

Germany, hold your breath, never intended to launch a world war. It was simply the natural process of Germany asserting her strengh. Rhineland(ancestral German lands) was remilitarized, Bohemia was annexed rightfull since the majority were Germans, and last but not least the Danzig corridor was rightfully demanded back from the Poles. The Polish refusal led to military action, followed by a British ultimatum(GB was guarranteeing Poland), naturaly rejected by the krauts and Great Britain declared war on September the 4th. France follwed suit and the rest is history.
While it is romantic to think of dictators preparing for a titanic clash with world domination as its prize, the reality was far from it.
Curt, please take a look at a map of Germany from 1871-1914. Then compare it with a 1930s map. Huge difference. After WW1 ancestral German territories with ethnic German populations were given to the Poles, Czechs etc. The German army was reduced to no more than 100.000 men, military service was abolished, democracy installed(elections every 2 years so as to keep the krauts occupied and divided), the most important industrial area forcefully demilitarized, and their economy was burdened with repaying all the costs of war of EVERY participant.
And bear in mind that the unification of Germany was terribly recent-veterans of the Franco-Prussian war were still in the army. This situation was not to last long-As Zofre(French WW1 general) said after reading the terms of the Armistice "This is not peace! This is a cease fire for 20 years!"
In short the initial German war goal was to reverse the treaty of Versailies.
There would be another european war Hitler or not. It just escalated to World level.

 

[Palaiologos2]

You know the very notion of blitzkrieg was developed because of these limitations in midwar Germany;
Guderian clearly states in his "Achtung Panzer!" that the most propable war for Germany was a two front war against France or Czechia or against France and Poland. Germany being the defender.
Don't forget that the Poles invaded Germany in the 1920s, to be turned back by the Freikorps.
Military problem; Two front war with 100.000 men available.
Solution; concetration of all manpower on one front to close it a s quickly as possible before turning to the other front. Needless to say the army to execute such a move had to be highly mobile(motorized). Infantry regiments had to be able to keep pace with the "new weapon"(tank) regiments.
Result; Birth of Blitzkrieg.

 

[Palaiologos2]

There is an interesting story in the memoirs of a guard that was outside the Fuhrer's office at the momment that the British ultimatum arrived. Apparently a translator had to be brought cause neither Hitler nor Gering spoke any English. (Parenthesis; Ultimata between two major nations tantammount to declarations of war-neither has the luxury to back down). After the translator finished Hitler remained silent. After a while Gering came out the door and told the guard "if we loose this one, may God have mercy on us", and left.
Hitler was silent still.
The subsequent frenzy at the Reichstag was nothing more than state propaganda to induce enthusiasm to the Germans.

 

[Alsbron]

I may just go with a more modern style WW3 conflict that begins in Israel but is fought between an Axis of Russia, China, Iran, North Korea and India against the Allies, the United States, Britain, France, Israel, Pakistan, South Korea, Japan ect. At least then Germany would be fighting on the Allied side and we could all get along. At this point I'm able to change the theme with ease by renaming tribes and swapping a couple cities. The real work has only begun. Maybe y'all can talk about this WW3 scenario some. Keep in mind here WMD's are off the table. A conventional war fought with modern weapons. Here's a rough list of what I think the units might look like:

Americans
US Infantry
US Marines
US Airborne
Japanese Inf.
Israeli Inf.
S. Korean Inf.
Brazilian Inf.
Mexican Inf.
M-1 Abrams
M-2 Bradley
F-22 Raptor
F-35 Lightning
B-2 Spirit
A-10 Thunderbolt

European Union
British Inf.
French Inf.
Canadian inf.
Australian Inf.
German Inf.
Turkish Inf.
Challenger II
Leopard II
Euro Typhoon

Chinese / Russian

MIG-29
MIG-35

Chinese
Chinese Inf.
N. Korean inf.
Flying Dragons

Russians
Red Army
Iranian Inf.
Pakistani inf.
T-90

Indians
Indian Inf.
Arjun I

Everyone
Engineers
Conscripts
Motor Inf.
Light Armor
Fighter
Bomber
Artillery
Battle Cruiser
Battleship
Carrier
Cruise Missile

 

[clightning]

those that suggest an Axis victory against Britain in late 1940 was impossible are overlooking the natural land route the Nazis had through Turkey.

Well yes Nazi may win a war against British Empire(cut supply routes to the colonies), but it can not take the Britain island. Then if it come to this stage, it is absolutely that US will engage, as US engaged actually quite long before Pearl Harbor in history. Once US is in the game, it's done.
It doesn't matter that US were not well prepared. US proved itself able to unleashed its power fast enough. Japanese superiority in Pacific lasted only 6-8 months. German Navy can do no better. An invasion to the Britain island is not possible.
The only difference between this scenario and the history would be:
1, With US support Britain would continue fight and win, but as a little brother of US rather than a major power equal to US, and lost the colonies before rather than after the war was ended.
2, Germany would very likely eat some A-bombs.
Only Nazi(with whole west Europe)+Soviet together MAY be a decent(but still weaker) rival of US.
Regarding to the Soviets aggressions to its neighbors, that's no good, but it doesn't seems worse than US to American natives, and we don't call US a fascist power because of that, do we?
It's Russia's "habit" to establish a security perimeter, although it can not be justified to secure your own house by destroying others, it is somewhat understandable consider Soviet's dangerous environment, and the experience of German occupation, Polish occupation, and West interven in its revolution.
And about Nazi's economy plan...It is a stimulus package, a common treatment to The Depression. However, the package of US is to build huge infrastructures, which would create “demand” to re-start the economy, and would also be useful when good economy back, thus it is a good investment. Obama is doing(or at least claim he's doing) something similar in Renewable Energy and ect. But Nazi's package is to militarize the economy, cut the wage of labors, while keep the profit for the industry Monopoly/Oligopoly, so they don't have to share the bitterness, and build up a huge military, which can make no repay in any time, unless it is used to rob others. That is the financial and investment statement of pre-war Nazi Germany. Go to war or go bankrupt. It is not sustainable. Not like Soviet's at all.
Soviet is bad in many aspects, killed tens or even hundred of innocent people, but it also saved and improved living standard of millions without rob anyone eles(unlike most other industrial power), and never push itself to a position that it can only start a war to survive. It is far less bad than Nazi.

@Alsbron:
Hey your new idea is interesting but...if then what's the difference with most other "Cold War Turn Hot" SCNs? A victory Axis SCN would be always has its special tast.
Anyway it's up to you. Don't be over infulenced by these crazy talks here. A crazy SCN is never less welcomed.

 

[Alsbron]

clight, your whole basis for claiming the Middle East strike wouldn't knock out the British misses the whole point myself and others have been trying to make. Germany didn't need this move to knock the British out right away. They simply needed control of the oil fields in Iraq and Saudi Arabia as well as the route through Turkey to the oil around Baku. If the Germans get to Baku early in the invasion of Russia through the mountains, it's a different ball game. If Russia were to collapse, leaving only Britain to fight the Reich, I believe the Brits would have signed a peace, cut their losses and lived to fight Hitler another day.

 

[clightning]

Hi Alsbron, i think my point is: US will not sit in home watch this, and US is the single largest decisive factor of ww2. Every thing eles is not so important. Nazi may beat others harder, the war may last longer, but it's still a US victory. The better Nazi fights, the more A-bombs they get to eat.
And UK will continue fight if US join, because the economy and financial tie between US-UK will guarantee a US victory is also a UK victory, even if lost all colonies, UK can still "take a free ride" of US infulence in the post-war global market. Just like it is now.

 

[Ingvar VII]

clightning: You write as assuming that your fantasy version of how things could have gone is somehow mettled in stone. This writing style is not very good if you want to be taken seriously.

Bottomline is that calculating history is an impossibly difficult task. There are overall too many factors and too many unknowns for it ever to be possible to tell.

 

[civ2units]

It´s very interesting to see this discussion of other people from different countries in Europe about Hitlers plans during the second World War.

I agree with Palaiologos2 about Hitlers plans. It wasn´t his intention to occupy West Europe and fought against France, Britain and the USA and according to this dominate the world. He tried to sign a peace treaty with Britain to avoid a war in the West after he occupied Poland.

His plan was to create new living space for german citizens in East Europe and Russia. This means that all people who actually lived there have to expelled or killed. Hitler was a heavy racist and in his opinion, the aryan race was the only one who had to dominate East Europe and Russia. The people living there had to be slaves for the aryans.

The Nazism was a inhuman ideology and thank god that Hitler never had a chance to completly realize his crazy plans.

Unfortunatelly Germany had to pay a very high price after the war. Over 11 million germans where expelled, thousands murdered and hundred of thousand german women raped (mainly in Silesia, Pomerania and Prussia) immediatelly after the war. Our country was totally destroyed and became over 40 years a vasall of the USA and Soviet Union.

I remember this time when I was a child in the eighties and visited the westside of the inner german border. Thank god that the East German revolution was peaceful and the Cold War never got a Hot War.

Here are some information about Hitlers crazy plans about East Europe and Russia:

Generalplan Ost

Lebensraum

 

[techumseh]

The notion that Hitler's demands were legitimate and that Polish and Allied resistance caused the war is nonsense. Hitler used German dissatisfaction with the territorial adjustments of the Versailles Treaty to fan militarism as a preparation for a general European war. The Polish corridor was the only piece that Germany may have had a legitimate claim on; it never had any claim to Austria or the Sudetenland. Nor did he respect his own promises when he took the rest of (non-German) Czechoslovakia a few months later.

It's true that Hitler hoped to avoid a general war when he invaded Poland, though he knew it was likely. But that's because he wanted another 2 years to prepare for it. He always intended to attack in the west. And he certainly intended to attack the Soviet Union, in order to aquire leibensraum or "living space". It's all laid out in "Mein Kampf".

While it's possible that another war might have been fought over the Polish corridor even if Hitler had not come to power, it's pure speculation. The reason it became a conflagration that engulfed nearly all of Europe was the fanatical ultra-nationalist, racist, far-right ideology of Hitler and the Nazi Party. Attempting to excuse them for starting the war and placing the blame on the Allies is historical revisionism of the worst sort.

 

[clightning]

clightning: You write as assuming that your fantasy version of how things could have gone is somehow mettled in stone. This writing style is not very good if you want to be taken seriously.

Bottomline is that calculating history is an impossibly difficult task. There are overall too many factors and too many unknowns for it ever to be possible to tell.

Hi Ingvar VII: If there is any dispolite or bad grammar please be free to point out
But seriously, i think my points are not unproven fantasy: US always wants to interven and help UK from the very beginning, it only needs a "Excuse" or "Reason". US escorts engaged U-Boats long before Pearl Harbour. It can not afford lost UK as a major allie.

 

[civ2units]

It was never my intention to excuse what Hitler ever did. Far from it, I condemn Hitler for everything he did.

He and his Nazis established an inhuman ideology in Germany, haunted and murdered millions of jews in Germany and later occupied Europe, murdered millions of innocent civilians in nearly every country where the Nazis marched through or attacked.

Believe me, I´m the last one who would try to find anything good on Hitler or his plans. But it´s in my opinion a fact that he, at least at the beginning of the war, hadn´t any intention to fight against the West.

He himself was very suprised when the german army occupied France in only a few weeks. Maybe after this and the succesfully occupation of the balkan region made him thinking about ruling whole Europe and not only the Eastern part.

Too many people, on both sides, had to die until this monster was eliminated.

 

[techumseh]

Not to worry, Civ2Units. I wasn't responding to you, but to Palaiologos2's post. I agree overall with your comments.

I also want to challenge clightning's theory that only the US really mattered in WWII. This is wrong on several levels.

First, US production was not that far ahead of other major combatants in the war. Here are some stats for the war:

Total aircraft production (thousands)

US: 325
Brit: 132
USSR: 160
Ger: 120
Jap: 76

Total tank production (thousands)

US: 71
Brit: 34
USSR: 105
Ger: 67
Jap: 25

These stats show that in addition to the US, both Britain and the USSR outproduced Germany in aircraft. The USSR outproduced both Germany and it's own allies in tanks by a wide margin. Given that it took all three powers, whose combined production far outstripped Germany's, until 1945 to defeat Hitler's regime, it's unlikely that one alone could have done so, especially if the industrial capacity of the other two had fallen into German hands.

When you consider that even after the Normandy landings and the strategic air offensive of the western allies, 60% of German ground forces and over 40% of German aircraft were allocated to the eastern front, it's clear that the Soviet war effort was critical to the defeat of Nazi Germany.

Finally, you can't ignore the homefront political situation in the US. Isolationism was very strong in the US, and was only overcome when the US was directly attacked by Japan. It was Hitler that declared war on the US, not the other way around. Had he not done so, it's unlikely that Roosevelt could have persuaded the Congress to declare war, regardless of the fate of Great Britain.

"What if?" scenarios are always challenging, but unless they are based on accurate economic and military data, as well as realistic political assesments, they should be considered to be in the realm of historical fantasy, rather than purely historical scenarios.

 

[Palaiologos2]

Techumseh i think you've gotten the wrong impression; i am not blaming the allies for WWII.
Actually i am not blaming anybody. I don't see war as inherently evil; Britain and France did what they should have done all along-it was in their national interest to keep the Germans down.

Polish corridor being the only piece that Germany may have had a legitimate claim on????
May???. You do know these lands were German for more than 1000 years? What is may supposed to mean? They were certainly considered German in the national collective memory.Honestly i have to admit i am generally talking in account of an abstract notion of "justice", a notion quite alien to the affairs of nations. My own personall opinion, when it comes to the affairs of states is "might makes right".
For example my own nation Greece, lost the war of 1919-22. That meant that the Ionian Greeks living in Asia minor since time immemorial had to become refugees leaving their lands to the Turks. 1.500.000 Ionians became refugees(among them my ancestors) to mainland Greece. While any true Greek cries when remembering the events of 1922 i can't blame the Turks for it. They bested us on the field of battle.Period. In the eyes of a less cynic man than me it would certainly be considered unjust.

In the same thinking when it comes to Sudetenland, to the German eyes these were legitimate German lands. Czechia after all is a fabricated nation and these lands were inhabited by Germans.
No matter one's political bias when the German army entered Sudetenland ethnic Germans (comprising the majority of the region) went out in the streets cheering. They were apparently happy about joining the German state. Even from a humanist's point of view these people felt they were better off living under Germany than Czechia.
As for the annexing of the whole of Czechia Hitler is not to blame; Its the Czech themselves who preffered occupation to war. What hegemon, Nazi or not, in his right mind would NOT try to annex Czechia , especially when no ressistance was offered?.

As for the yanks you are right claiming that the public oppinion was in favor of isolationism; Roosevelt did his best to provoke the Japanese into attacking and thus be justified to enter the war.
And of course the commies were detrimental in winning the war. They were the cause of both Germany and Japan's defeat.

 

[Palaiologos2]

And btw the Nazi party's ideology was left, not ultra right.
Hence the red colour on their flag.