Brilliant analysis? You guys have no idea about history... ;-)
Let me take this apart, playing the
advocatus diaboli of my beloved nemesis:
I agree with cr0ws, Hitler was not a genius. But he was intelligent, one of the best orators in history, and mad as a loon.
He made an incredible number of mistakes in the war. Here are just a few as I see it.
1. Trying to use the ME-262 as a fast strike bomber instead of an interceptor.
Don't know technical stuff that well... had he other options for fast strike bombers?
2. Attacking Russia. Americans like to say that "we won the war" but it is every bit as arguable that the T-34 won the war. It was the best tank ever made if you consider the date and circumstances under which it was built.
He attacked russia as he knew sooner or later russia would join the war as britain wouldn't make peace after 1940s lost battle of britain. He underestimated american help for russia, though - as he overestimated the power of his submarines, which was much higher in 1940 than in the later years (Enigma...), so more convoys got thru to Murmansk, which resulted in more T-34, ultimately.
3. Altering the attacks on Britain from the RAF to London. Very VERY bad move to attack a general populace, particularly a populace that has a history of proud combat.
The move went "well" in Guernica, Rotterdam, his aim was constant terror and frustration. To go down and sleep in the tube every night certainly was no fun for the civil "proud combatants", neither was it helping the "proud combatants" sitting in the bunkers in german cities during the firestorms, to raise morale.
4. Since he DID #3, and he was willing to gas Jews, he should have loaded the V2s with chemical warheads. Chemical weapons are absolutely terrifying.
Yes, first he thought britain would want a peace after france was beaten. So he willingly gave the exepiditionary corps some time to escape in Dunkirk, as a sign of goodwill, at least thats what some historians say. Regarding the racist ideology, anglo-saxons were arian, so they were more treated with honor than slavs. Total war meant to him total war of genes---he just wanted to make sure they didn't mix so superiority was consolidated. Maybe in that sense we can understand his descision not to gas england.
5. Ever allying himself with Japan. The nations were simply too far apart to be of any use to each other at all, and you don't ally with a nation if you can't gain advantage in doing so.
America was in the hand of the "international jewish high finance" as he thought, Japan wasn't. He knew sooner or later he would need to distract America. Japan was a good candidate for that: they posed no thread to germany, had an equally fascist attitude and helped to distract ressources which otherwise would have been against him.
6. Not having Mussolini assassinated and replaced with a competent general.
I disagree: Mussolini was essential as a leader figure. So he should he have controlled him better, then Mussolini would have done what the competent general would have told him to...
7. Building a Baltic fleet. He should have just built shore batteries with greater range than any battleship of the day, and concentrated his efforts on U-boats and controlling the Mediterranean. With a competent leader in Italy that would have meant more.
The "baltic fleet" you refer to, wasn't it in fact stationed in the Skagerrak most of the time, preventing invasions of occupied Norway?
As in the Mediterranean, the British had such superiority in ships, tonnage and fuel, it was clearly impossible to win there without gibraltar, cyprus, malta and egypt. The italian fleet was in no state to fight, during no point in the war. I don't think they lacked a leader alone but rather equipment, morale, training, motivation (he was a very bad leader, though!).
8. Meddling in affairs military. You delegate to your generals. Rommel was the best general of the war, in my humble opinion, and if given the means was a brutally competent opponent.
Rommel lost as the fuel transports didn't reach Africa due to allied superiority of mediterranean, later he had problems to defend Normandy as the command structure wasn't in his favor cause Hitler distrusted him.
But you are right, Hitler often meddled in the military descisions, to
-fight ideologically
-make staff changes
-show his unpredictability
9. Concentrate on E=mc2. Einstein gave his paper to the world. There had to be German physicists who knew the significance. A nuke offshore of London and the war is over because Britain would likely have surrendered immediately.
"Hard" water was produced in Norway, which is needed to enrich uranium/plutonium. They were sabotaged, I think. He concentrated on different "Super-Weapons" then.
10. Too many obtuse weapon systems. The King Tiger, for example. The Tiger tank, while overly complicated, was an awesome weapon. The King Tiger was a waste of resources and turned out to be a very limited tank because it was too heavy for almost all terrain in the areas of deployment.
Prestige project. It was not produced very often, but under the right conditions it blew 10 shermans easily in a row--- useless though, as the allies had hundreds of them, the germans didn't.
11. Don't shove a huge number of able bodied troops into ovens and chemical showers. German Jews would probably have been just as patriotic as any other German. If you're going to use racism as a motivator for your evil plans, don't waste manpower inside your country. Pick some other country and blame it all on them. After the WWI treaty that Germany was forced to sign, they had plenty of people to blame.
And they did! But the others ("high finance Jews sitting in London and New York") were too strong at that moment, so the enemy within (Levy shoemaker from around the corner) was welcome, as weaker! It's the tendency of people, if they get beaten to beat someone weaker and thats just what Hitler instrumentalized. By breaking the bond of civil codes inside germanies people he gained control over the power to redefine those--
Hitler, were he a genius, could easily have won WWII for the Germans.
By no means he could have beat the allies- ever;
he was forced to wage war by '39 as his deficits for re-militarizing germany where so high, germany would have gone bancrot the very next year. It's like in civ: he had to pillage to pay his maintance.
He'd have fielded superior tanks in larger numbers,
When the war began he had mostly old tanks, and later when the new series were in place the enemy had much more (T34) against him.
had more FW-120s and ME-262s in the air,
Yes, but the british had the shorter distances for their defense and thus more strategic coordinational options to win the battle of britain, even with lesser planes.
worked on a nuke for the V2,
he had neither the time nor the res
and NEVER followed the path of disaster that is to invade Russia.
don't agree, see above.
It is good that he's an add-on mod, however.
strongly disagree but you know that already^^
I also agree that Pol Pot was probably the worst of the worst, although Mao was damn bad too. I personally am not sure how those murder trains get rolling.
Poor childhood, lust for power, insanity, ideology, and -last but not least- people like grandpa Bush, protecting stupid $hitheads like Hitler for making money with crisis/war and/or need to install an enemy therefore--
And for a good nights sleep:
Fascism isn't an opinion, it's a crime!!!
Totally agree with you. By the way thank you for your leaderpack
At least it seams like this fourm is much more civilized then the OT fourm.
