From what point was Germany doomed during WWII?

[Millman]

As I've stated in the past we could be asking questions that have no answer. Take a scenario like 'Why wasn't Germany better off before and after WWII?'

You can ask a question from many points of view. You could even charge Germany could win WWIII or maybe Mongolia could.

You can see why it's so hard for a leader to win if they don't know every angle and outcome of their demise.

Germany is also very vague. Did you mean 'why didn't a political party ensure victory'?

 

[LightSpectra]

What in tarnations are you going on about?

 

[Lord Baal]

What in tarnations are you going on about?

Random gibberish, as usual. The question being asked has a clear and definite answer. Even my question has a very clear, precise answer. Even the crap he's spewing has answers. Germany wasn't better off before WWII for the simple reason that Nazi econmic policies had put their economy into the toilet. They weren't better off after the war due to their extremely harsh defeat and the policies of the occupying nations.

If he's asking why the Nazi Party didn't win the war with his last question about political parties ensuring victory, he's firstly positing a false dichotomy, as a loss for the Nazis was not necessaily a loss for Germany - and vice versa - and secondly is asking a silly and unnecessary question anyway, as the reasons the Nazi Party didn't win the war are already covered under the reasons why Germany didn't win the war.

 

[r16]

there is a comment about the Czechoslovakia back in these pages . Well , they were strong enough to hold the Germans while the French rolled in , had they actually wanted it . Yeah an exact equivalent to Poland but the catch would have been no operational German theory , yeah that elusive Blitzkrieg , and a quarter of the German armoured strength being of Czech origin up to 1941-42 . Poland should have stood together with the Czechs and Russians would have been scared and Americans would have been shown to stand against Nazis . A great lost opportunity but then everybody liked wars back then

 

[Polycrates]

I realise I'm coming late here to a discussion that has veered wildly off-topic into lord knows what.....

But to the original question, I would say September 1, 1939. Hitler himself and the Nazi party may have been doomed with or without war, I can't speak to that. But once war was joined in earnest, I don't see any way they could have won.
They were never going to have done anything significant to Britain (Sealion was of course completely unrealistic, and the inability of German planes to reach Northern England and Scotland meant that a German victory in the Battle of Britain would have been fairly meaningless).
North Africa was always going to be a dead loss because of the lack of logistical capacity.

And once he shared a border with Stalin, I don't see any way that war between Germany and the Soviets could have been avoided, even if Hitler was assassinated and replaced by someone eminently more sane. The more I've read about it, the more I think that Barbarossa was actually pretty much as successful as as an invasion of the USSR could possibly have been (at least the 1941 part anyway). I don't think the original plan based on a thrust straight to Moscow would have been successful - they didn't have the logistical ability for a significantly faster push to Moscow, and if the Soviets defended it then it likely would have turned into another Stalingrad (in any case, I don't think they could have taken it before winter 1941 - reaching Moscow and taking it are two very different things). And even if they did somehow take it, I don't think it would have been such a knockout blow as they intended (it was pretty much evacuated by the time the Germans got near anyway). I think they went with the right plan by going for the destruction of the Red Army as the first priority in preference to spearthrusts straight at e.g. Moscow (a plan even more predicated on the idea of the Soviets just throwing their arms up in despair and defeat), which just would have left them with a whole bunch more Russian troops left to fight along ridiculously long and exposed flanks. But really, I think they had no chance no matter what the plan.

As a backup date, I'd say December 7, 1941 - since if Hitler didn't defeat the Soviets in his initial push before the first winter (by whatever means that might have happened), he was never going to; and getting the Americans involved just massively sealed what was already a fait accompli.
Hitler was never going to have a better chance than 1941, since any further delay would only have increased Soviet readiness. And I can't imagine Stalin not attacking Germany as soon as he felt he possessed the advantage (though I'm not convinced he was planning an attack in 1941) - here's his chance to be an aggressive warmonger and take massive amounts of territory, while getting to play the white knight card at the same time. He was not the sort of guy to turn that sort of opportunity down.

 

[LightSpectra]

I agree with most of that post, though I'd like to point out that capturing Moscow would've done a great deal of damage to the Soviets simply because Moscow was the central railway hub.

 

[rilnator]

The more I've read about it, the more I think that Barbarossa was actually pretty much as successful as as an invasion of the USSR could possibly have been (at least the 1941 part anyway).

I agree, a lot of people think that Barbarossa was a total failure just because Moscow wasn't taken.

I still think the German generals (without Hitler looking over their shoulders) could have won a slugfest with the Soviets. They had the forces and the skill to do so in 1942.

 

[Cheezy the Wiz]

Hitler was never going to have a better chance than 1941, since any further delay would only have increased Soviet readiness.

Here's the key about the entirety of operations in the East, potential or actual. The more time the Soviets had, the better off they were. Their economy, especially heavy industry, was growing by leaps and bounds over even its German counterpart, and since long before the Nazi revamp began. Stalin knew it, probably better than Hitler. It was the whole reason for the Non-Aggression Pact, for all cuddling up with the Axis that Stalin did. The more time bought for the USSR, the better prepared it was, the further ahead it was, of Nazi Germany. It didn't even matter how many died or how much land was lost in 1941 (not suggesting they wantonly threw it away, either), if the central Soviet infrastructure survived to the winter, it was over for Germany. Even the successes the Germans did have in the second half of 1941 were built almost solely upon keeping the Soviets on their heels. Guderian famously observed in mid-December, after the permanent stall of his army outside of Tula, that the war was lost. Once the Soviets were allowed to draw their breath, there was really no hope. That the Germans continued to do so well after the winter of 1941 is really more a testament to the incompetence of Soviet military leadership than it is to German prowess, though I'm by no means discounting that either.

 

[Serutan]

That the Germans continued to do so well after the winter of 1941 is really more a testament to the incompetence of Soviet military leadership than it is to German prowess, though I'm by no means discounting that either.

That's true through the fall of 1942. By the time Kursk rolled around the Soviets
had mostly cured their command problems, and Stalin had gotten more reasonable
in setting objectives. After Kursk, I would not argue that the Germans
'did well' in a military sense.

 

[r16]

they were as good as they were against the Western Allies , though the Soviets had improved too much in operations and it made the difference . Tactically they would lose huge numbers , but once out of the fixed defences , there was no holding the Russians , until their fuel ran out .

 

[Lord Baal]

That's true through the fall of 1942. By the time Kursk rolled around the Soviets
had mostly cured their command problems, and Stalin had gotten more reasonable
in setting objectives. After Kursk, I would not argue that the Germans
'did well' in a military sense.

It's a little-known fact that the Soviet performance at Kursk was abysmal. It wasn't the relatively evenly matched large tank battle people think it was. It was basically a turkey shoot for the Germans.

 

[Millman]

Do other people have any verification for your personal belief Germany should have won a war or not?

The Nazi's could have called themselves the Lolipops. I can call myself millman and/or the one who doesn't agree with you.

 

[LightSpectra]

Is English your first language?

 

[Dachs]

The Nazi's could have called themselves the Lolipops.

If that's a joke about Hitler's niece, you suck and I hate you for putting that image in my mind.

 

[Millman]

By not gaining new territory you could consider them 'always' lost after the fact. But politically that remains to be seen unless you know the outcome of it already.

 

[ParkCungHee]

Is English your first language?

Lightspectra, you and Baal will both lower your blood pressure if you remember schizophrenics can use the internet.

 

[Millman]

We're always making judgments, right? When did you want to stop being so judgmental about world wars?

 

[Racsoviale]

Yeah Millman is right. Stop judging poor Hitler and the SS, they were just missunderstood

 

[LightSpectra]

Lightspectra, you and Baal will both lower your blood pressure if you remember schizophrenics can use the internet.

I don't know what you're talking about. I've adopted "that remains to be seen unless you know the outcome of it already" as my favorite tautology of the week, so he's rapidly becoming my favorite poster.

 

[Domen]

Thank you for an interesting discussion. No sarcasm.

Thank you too! It was indeed an interesting discussion.

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BTW - few quotations which maybe can help understand why Pilsudski fought the Soviets despite the fact that he was always leftist and socialist:

First of all several episodes from Pilsudski's early life and his fight against Tsarist regime together with other revolutionists in Russia:

http://www.oocities.org/veldes1/pilsudski.html

He studied at the University of Kharkow and then joined a revolutionary and anti-Tsar organization known as “People’s Will.” In 1887, Pilsudski was arrested by the authorities and exiled to Siberia for five years. His brother, Bronislaw, was found to be in a revolutionary plot, and was an associate of Lenin’s soon-to-be executed brother.

After his release, Pilsudski involved himself in the socialist movement and by 1892 he founded the Polish Socialist Party. In 1900, he was arrested again for being the editor of an underground newspaper called “Robotnik.” ["Robotnik" = "Worker" in English] (...)

Now quotations. Here for example Pilsudski expresses his views that Communism is a sickness for Socialism and has nothing to do with true Socialism:

*Pilsudski used "bolshevism" as synonym of "communism" in the interviews below (as well as in general).

In the interview for "Journal de Génève" on 18 May 1919 Pilsudski said:

"We are very far from bolshevism. Seeing devastation caused by the communist system, we do not understand how can there be socialists in Europe, who regard it favourably. Bolshevik system is even a negation of the socialist idea. There is nothing more disgraceful for socialism, than bolshevism. In northern territories, which are just being liberated by us, the hatred of peasants and peaceful inhabitants towards bolsheviks has something terrible in it."

From the interview for Times on 8 October 1919:

"Bolshevism is a purely Russian disease. (...) It doesn't deeply root in countries, which are not genuinely Russian. (...) The primary rule of the Russian bolshevism is class revenge. The common ideal of a socialist is the universal equality of certain rights; it is not what the Russian bolshevik wants. He wants to overthrow previous order of things. His keynote is the domination of proletariat and oppression of those, under the oppression of whom it previously remained and the place of whom it took. Bolshevism is the heritage of the old Russian social system*, in which subjects were treated like trash by their lords. Bolshevism maybe has some prospects in Central Russia, where that system had been present, but not in Baltic provinces."

*It's about Russian version of feudalism I guess.

From the interview for "Times" on 9 February 1920:

"European nations more remote from the hearth of bolshevism might still believe in loveliness of the system introduced by Lenin. But we, who judge this system at close quarters, already have a formed opinion about it. We are terrified by the horrible situation created in Russia by bolshevism. (...) Whereas Poland will never agree to voluntarily go to death by attempting to taste communism as well. Now, when we are free, we are too attached to life to expose ourselves to the loss of it for empty delusions."

================================================

Marian Zdziechowski (born 1861, died 1938) wrote:

"Since the beginning, since the moment when we gained our independence, extreme leftist groups were disregarding the bolshevik threat, claiming that Russian imperialism is our real enemy, as if bolshevism was not even more greedy and imperialistic. Groups calling themselves nationalist were following this example of extreme leftists, it seems that they were even outmatching them."

Jacek Kloczkowski and Filip Musial in their book write:

"(...) Yet at dawn of the reborn Poland anti-communism turned out to be one of the foundations of her cultural and political identity. (...) The answer for the question: what was anti-communism in II Polish Republic, is very short - raison d'etat."