Was D-Day necessary ?

[privatehudson]

That and liberating Europe quicker, thus freeing people under opression and shortening the legnth of the holocaust and similar events... The effect of D-day was undoubtedly on the Germans also, it drew resources away from other fronts and stopped eventually the V1 attacks on the UK for another. It was necessary to defeat Germany as quickly as it did, therefore it was important.

 

[Titan2018]

D-Day was essential since it ruled out any chance for Germany to shift their forces east.

While it may well have been possible for Russians to finish the war alone, it would have given Germany the time it needed to bring their next generation jet planes into service (they were being produced deep underground away from the bombing). This would have dramatically shifted the balance of power and perhaps given the Germans the edge they needed to break the Russian advance(no more reinforcements). With the advance broken and Russia out of the picture, the US and the UK would have faced a Nazi GErmany equiped with jet fighters and long-range bombers capible of reaching parts of the US. World War 2 would have just begun and Germany would stand a good chance of winning.

 

[rilnator]

Originally posted by Titan2018
D-Day was essential since it ruled out any chance for Germany to shift their forces east.

While it may well have been possible for Russians to finish the war alone, it would have given Germany the time it needed to bring their next generation jet planes into service (they were being produced deep underground away from the bombing). This would have dramatically shifted the balance of power and perhaps given the Germans the edge they needed to break the Russian advance(no more reinforcements). With the advance broken and Russia out of the picture, the US and the UK would have faced a Nazi GErmany equiped with jet fighters and long-range bombers capible of reaching parts of the US. World War 2 would have just begun and Germany would stand a good chance of winning.

What new generational planes are you talking about? The Me-262 had a range of about 500 km and the Kondor, by no means new, but the bomber with the highest range did 3,500 km. Now you do the maths, France to Washington and back is a long way. They would be harrased by fighters not only over America but twice also while passing Britain. Germany was well and truly out of the war by 1944. Finding fuel and producing the new aircraft gave the Germans enough trouble as it was.

 

[Titan2018]

Germany was working on new weapons and technologies that would have come to maturity if Germany had managed to hold out into 1946. Theses weapons could have shifted the tide of the war had they made it into use.

 

[rilnator]

Originally posted by Titan2018
Germany was working on new weapons and technologies that would have come to maturity if Germany had managed to hold out into 1946. Theses weapons could have shifted the tide of the war had they made it into use.

!946 would have been too late though as America had the bomb by mid 1945.

 

[pomsa]

Not if Germany succeded first.

 

[joespaniel]

Originally posted by Marla_Singer
Actually, the main reason why the western allies had to wait so long before coming in Normandy is that Nazi Wehrmacht needed to be enough weak to give a chance of the D-Day to be a success. [/I]

In 1941, the US had a formidable navy, but the army was ranked #17 in the world (tied with Portugal). The US was basicaly disarmed.

In 1940, FDR traded all the surplus stocks of artillery, machine guns and ammunition to Great Britain, which had just left most of it's equipment at Dunkirq.

The US Army was in no shape to fight a world class army like the German Heer, and the US airforce was pathetic.

Not until 1944 did the US even begin to approach the necessary numbers of men and material to attempt an invasion of occupied France, and they really should have waited until 1945, but they couldn't.

The US, British, Canadian, French and Polish forces operating in France drew 75% of Hitler's tanks and other mobile forces. Hitler sent his best forces against the west, in a crazy dream that if the Bolsheviks started to overrun Europe, the US and GB would switch sides.

Without a Western Front, the USSR was not assured an easy walk into Berlin. Germany could never have defeated the USSR after Kursk, they lost too much in that battle. But they could have fought the Soviets to a standstill without Western Allied armies.

As Marla pointed out, France, Italy, the Lowlands, Austria and Western Germany at least enjoyed self determination after the close of hostilities, unlike poor Poland, Czechoslovakia and the rest of Eastern Europe.

 

[Unexpected]

I think D-Day was necessary, the Sovs desperatly needed the Allies to open a second front, if the Allies had sat in England doing nothing then the Russians would have been seriously demoralised, thinking that it's up to them alone to
defeat the Germans. But D-Day, and the threat of a landing (which caused troops to be stationed on the Atlantic Wall, which could have been transferred to the Eastern front), caused the Germans to face a two-front-war, they faced a similar problem in WWI. Indeed Hitler signed the Nazi-Soviet pact (or Ribbentrop-Molotov pact) to ensure that he could deal with Western Europe first without having to fight the Sovs at the same time, obviously his plan failed.However one could argue that the mere threat of a D-Day landing was enough, as it would cause the Germans to have a large force on the Atlantic Wall and thus detracting forces from the East, I do not agree with this because after the Allies had invaded the threat was REAL, they were losing ground on both fronts, defeat was looming, whereas if the Allies had not invaded, the Nazis could have the slight hope that they never would. The D-Day landings also presented a problem to Hitler in that their soldiers, particularly those from foreign, ie. non-german, countries were willing to surrender to Allied forces. For example in the Ambrose book referred to in earlier posts one of the paratroopers in D-Day recalled that there were three or four Poles firing at them, with a German officer behind them forcing them to, so the Poles shot the German and surrendered.