Defeat of the Luftwaffe

The author of such work presents the popular view that the Eastern Front was the decisive theater of WWII. As I have already pointed out, I can't agree with this. Even if Hitler defeated Russia, this would not necessarily meant the war would be won by him. Maybe the Allies would not won, but I also cannot see the Soviets in a much better position if Hitler had defeated Britain or made it sign peace.

"... the popular view that the Eastern Front was the decisive theater of WWII. As I have already pointed out, I can't agree with this."

So what are you saying, Jenesch? ..... that the Eastern Front was just a side show?

MM

michaelmaltby said:

"... the popular view that the Eastern Front was the decisive theater of WWII. As I have already pointed out, I can't agree with this."

So what are you saying, Jenesch? ..... that the Eastern Front was just a side show?

MM

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No way Michael. I considerate both fronts equally important.

Most historians considerate the Eastern Front decisive, and by decisive they want to mean that the West helped, but the Soviets didn't ultimately needed of their allies to defeat Hitler. This is certainly discussible, and I already presented arguments about this many times on this thread.

To put in a better perspective what I want to mean, let's imagine two soldiers: Smith and Ivan. They have a task of defend a perpendicular corridor were enemies can attack from both sides, each defending a side. When the enemy attacks, Ivan starts to receive more enemies than Smith but his comrade ocasionally eliminates an enemy that would kill him if he was alone. Fortunately they finish their mission without enjuries, and despite the fact that Ivan eliminated more enemies, he certainly would not claim he was "more important". On the contrary, he could have even say something like this historical comrade said:

" Without American production the United Nations could never have won the war."

— Joseph Stalin during a dinner at the Tehran Conference, 1943

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Military_history_of_the_United_States_during_World_War_II

Pretty obvious that was a team work. I just don't understand how some people can accept a team work in any other situation but not in the efforts from the Allies in WWII. They have to find someone that was "more important" to get the credit of saving the others. And of course that I already give the answer from this when posted a quote from Stalin: Cold War. Pure and simple politics are behind all this, being the US, Russia, the UK or any other country.

stona said:

I refer the honourable gentleman to my post #16 on the second page of this thread which seems strangely prescient after all this typing.

It's good to see the book is available to read online.

Cheers
Steve

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My apologies for missing your post.

It's a great book and many thanks to DARPA and Mr Berners-Lee or I would almost certainly never have read it.

I was astonished to see in the graphs of (average monthly by) half year aircraft production that it wasn't until approximately the start of 1943 that German aircraft production roughly matched even that of Britain alone. Given that the truly awesome production capacity of the US (and also Russia) was just beginning to ramp up it would seem that by then the war was already lost for the Luftwaffe.

Jenisch said:

The author of such work presents the popular view that the Eastern Front was the decisive theater of WWII.

Click to expand...

Which author,Williamson Murray? I'm not sure how much of the book is available online but that is not his conclusion at all.The book concentrates on the defeat of the Luftwaffe but this self evidently links to the broader defeat of the Third Reich.
Here is a paragraph from his conclusions.

"When one strips aside the layers of myth and legend from those dark days over Europe when "strategic" bombing ground Germany's cities into dust, there is no doubt that airpower played a decisive role in the winning or losing of the war. But that decisive role was no greater than the victory in the Atlantic that allowed America to bring its industrial and military power to bear or the victories of the Red Army on the eastern front that slowly but surely wore away the Wehrmacht's fighting edge. Although the air war was only a part of an enormous conflict that swept over Europe, it did prove decisive in helping the Allies achieve victory since it played an indispensable role, without which the Anglo-American lodgment on the continent and the final defeat of the Third Reich is inconceivable."

I think you misrepresent him by suggesting that he suggests that the Eastern front was the decisive theatre. They were all interlinked in a global conflict and NO one theatre was decisive.

Cheers
Steve

bluezanzibar said:

My apologies for missing your post.

It's a great book and many thanks to DARPA and Mr Berners-Lee or I would almost certainly never have read it.

I was astonished to see in the graphs of (average monthly by) half year aircraft production that it wasn't until approximately the start of 1943 that German aircraft production roughly matched even that of Britain alone. Given that the truly awesome production capacity of the US (and also Russia) was just beginning to ramp up it would seem that by then the war was already lost for the Luftwaffe.

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Adam Tooze an economist who has studied the Reich, who I however take with a grain of salt, has made contributions to the field. He notes that during the period before 1942, contrary to previous claims that they were in a peacetime mode designed to maintain Nazi popularity, that the Germans were in fact making substantial investments in munitions, were on a war economy footing. However the investment and labour was going into building the production facilites (factories, machine tools, coal to oil). After the facilities had been made the investment switched to actual production.

Milch found that he could barely squeeze out 1000 aircraft per year in 1937 one reason he ordered thousands of Ju 52 transports as primitive bombers. The industrial capacity of Britain especially with her colonies was substantially greater, a lot of German labour and GDP were concentrated in the agricultural sector (80% of German food consumption was autonomous compared to less than 50% of Britains). Britain had a more 'modern' style economy while the Germans were very concerned by being Blockaded and obtaining access to markets for their goods so that they could import tried to at least limit their need for food imports. The claim that German women were not mobilised into the workforce is also incorrect as they simply remained as agricultural workers, often on family farms, while men went of war. Someone has to milk Frieda the cow, collect eggs and manage the farms affairs. Of course these farms were much smaller than US farms and thus less efficient as mechanisation was less amortisable and colder European growing seasons precluded multiple yearly crops.

Much of this information was known and openly available, unfortunatly many Historians became biased prone to polemically condemn the Nazi ideology and personalities and sought ways to show their corruption or incompetance. The Nazis certainly had some issues in these areas I don't deny but they are overstated. He makes other points, a point made by the German economics minister Hjalmar Schacht long ago, that the German economy could not support this level of munitions expansion. Hey, the Germans were already telling us but no one wanted to listen.

There was a substantial organised program to develop mass production; the Ju 88 being an example that looks impressive but looks pitifull when compared to B-24 production. It must be remembered that much of the German economy then as now is based on niche markets "We make the thing that makes the thing that goes inside the thing" is a statement of today that is applicable to pre war germany. Mass prodution was not as evolved despite the substantial German engineering capabillity and it takes a while to build up. Timming meant they never really got the full fruits of this effort. For instance the Ju 288 4 wing spars were to be pressed out in a single opperation, optimally tapered with even the bolts for attachment integral to the spars but this aircraft but this ambitious aircraft failed for political and or technical delays.

There was a lot of slack in the German industrial economy in the early years of the war. It can't be said to have been on a wartime footing comparable to say the U.K. This was due to the short war doctrine of the nazi leadership.
I had an Aunt who went from serving in a shop (The Coop if I remember correctly) to working a twelve hour shift sewing fabric onto control surfaces at Castle Bromwich in 1941. My cousin still lives in Sutton Coldfield,the other side of the modern M6.
This under mobilisation of German industry is the principal reason that Speer was able to achieve the results he did in the mid/late war period.
The USSBS noted.

"After the defeat at Moscow early in 1942, armament production increased rapidly. However, such increase was more the result of improvements in industrial efficiency than of general economic mobilization. Studies of German manpower utilization show that throughout the war a great deal of German industry was on a single shift basis, relatively few German women (less than in the first war) were drawn into industry and the average work week was below British standards."

Cheers
Steve

".... The claim that German women were not mobilised into the workforce is also incorrect ...."

Tooze also makes the important point that more German women were already in the workforce (than UK women) prior to the start of WW2. And that the standard of living (pre WW2) in the UK was higher than in Germany.

Jenisch you may disagree with this, but history, especially recent history, is in a state of 'normalization' -approaching (but never quite reaching) normalization. This is particularly true in the case of the USSR where when the wall came down and the ice melted, information began to flow more and more freely. Naturally this is a good thing but it creates 'niches' for historians to jump into and make their mark by presenting 'old' history in the 'new' light of uncovered information.

Take your example of Smith and Ivan. You could say - for example - that the USSR made the greatest contribution in WW2 because more Ivans died than Smiths. You could also - however - put a dollar value ($$$ ) on the overall contribution of the Smith effort and the Ivan effort. If you used this as your measuring stick, you might reach a different conclusion.

The simple fact is that in WW2 ( as is the case today), all countries and all cultures/ideologies do NOT value human life the same.

So - how do you want to measure war effort "contribution"? In terms of war-end gains, the USSR and USA were the winners. In terms of war-end losses, the UK was the biggest loser (compounding its WW1 losses).

Chairs,

MM

stona said:

Which author,Williamson Murray? I'm not sure how much of the book is available online but that is not his conclusion at all.The book concentrates on the defeat of the Luftwaffe but this self evidently links to the broader defeat of the Third Reich.
Here is a paragraph from his conclusions.

"When one strips aside the layers of myth and legend from those dark days over Europe when "strategic" bombing ground Germany's cities into dust, there is no doubt that airpower played a decisive role in the winning or losing of the war. But that decisive role was no greater than the victory in the Atlantic that allowed America to bring its industrial and military power to bear or the victories of the Red Army on the eastern front that slowly but surely wore away the Wehrmacht's fighting edge. Although the air war was only a part of an enormous conflict that swept over Europe, it did prove decisive in helping the Allies achieve victory since it played an indispensable role, without which the Anglo-American lodgment on the continent and the final defeat of the Third Reich is inconceivable."

I think you misrepresent him by suggesting that he suggests that the Eastern front was the decisive theatre. They were all interlinked in a global conflict and NO one theatre was decisive.

Cheers
Steve

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CHAPTER III
THE TURN TO RUSSIA

The decisive campaign of the Second World War was the German invasion of Russia in 1941. The defeat of that effort reflected the failure of German leaders to prepare the economic and productive capacity of the Reich and western Europe for war on a continental rather than a western European scale. Thus, in a certain sense, the production and industrial decisions made by the German leadership in the summer of 1940 represented a decisive turning point in World War II. In effect, Germany's leadership had sealed her fate before the campaign opened.

And yes, the author also posted what you said stona. The problem I notice of this is that many historians apparently make an incorrect use of the word "decisive". Call the Soviet participation decisive means the Soviets that really defeated Hitler, and they would do this regardless of their Allies. The Brazilian troops send to Italy certainly played a secondary participation, since they helped, but only arrived and fought when the Allies certainly already decisively defeated Hitler. The Western Allies in WWII, not necessarily.

I give the credit of the Russians for conduct most of the ground combat. But call their participation decisive or that they certainly didn't need their Allies is a definative untrue.

"... In effect, Germany's leadership had sealed her fate before the campaign opened[/I]."

Exactly.

MM

michaelmaltby said:

"... In effect, Germany's leadership had sealed her fate before the campaign opened[/I]."

Exactly.

MM

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Many people say this about the Axis in WWII, but I'm not so certain. The Allies in France in 1940, the Germans in Stalingrad and Kursk, the Japanese in Midway, etc, it was all strategical errors from them or the Intelligence from the enemy behind such defeats. No doubt, if they were more prepared the chances of success would be higher, but this don't change the fact that the war was not certainly won since the start only by industrial superiority or logistical tables like is frequentely pointed out.

There were doctoral faults deeply embeded in the Nazi system that set the stage for defeat, they doomed themselves.

Their policies on the Jews ensured that they lost the foremost nuclear physicist, ensuring they'd never developed the greatest force multipier of all, the atom bomb
.
Their policies on the treatment of people other than what they considered of Germanic blood, lost them many potential allies. A classic example of making enemies faster than you can kill them. That resulted in tieing down many assets that would have been useful on the fronts.

Their whole industrial base was hampered by a system of favortism and cronyism, that led to much dupilcation of effort and wasted effort on projects that had no chance of effecting the war being fought. Such a mess even Speer could only correct some of it's problems.

And then of course their's Adolf himself in charge.

tyrodtom said:

There were doctoral faults deeply embeded in the Nazi system that set the stage for defeat, they doomed themselves.

Their policies on the Jews ensured that they lost the foremost nuclear physicist, ensuring they'd never developed the greatest force multipier of all, the atom bomb
.
Their policies on the treatment of people other than what they considered of Germanic blood, lost them many potential allies. A classic example of making enemies faster than you can kill them. That resulted in tieing down many assets that would have been useful on the fronts.


Their whole industrial base was hampered by a system of favortism and cronyism, that led to much dupilcation of effort and wasted effort on projects that had no chance of effecting the war being fought. Such a mess even Speer could only correct some of it's problems.

And then of course their's Adolf himself in charge.

Click to expand...

This is the usual Hollywood distortion of history. It avoids subtelty and objectivity. These people could keep whineing longer than a J-79 connected to an oil refinery.

Nazi Germany maintained allies in the form of Hungary, Rommania, Bulgaria, Italy with friendly relations with Turkey, Spain, Portugual, Argentina. Within the nascient Arab states and independance movements they also had friendly relations. Nazi Germany had co-opperation agreements and for instance brought Bulgarian students to Germany for education. A victorious Reich certainly would have had allies and friendly nations.

Within a few months of opperation Barbarossa Hitler is signing orders to release Ukranian POWs. Hitler is even quoted in table talk advocating the introduction of Ukrainian blood/women into the race to improve the strain (table talk page 696). Faced with the reality of contact with other races and cultures the Nazis threw the book away and started again. There were even black (half black half white) officers in the Whermacht, results of marriages between Germans who had lived in Africa.

Nazi racial ideology is a lot more flexible, reasonable than the hyped version of history would have us believe. That's why it enroled a substantial portion of the world.

As far as the atomic bomb goes: the Germans lacked the resources to complete a bomb by 1945, It has nothing to do with "Exiled Jeiwsh Scientists" in fact the USA lacked the resources to comple a bomb by the end of the european war. Having a synchotron was more imporatant than any supposedly superior exiled Jewish scientist. A German A bomb would have been ready by early 1947 given their virtual success in achieving criticality in late 1944., probably mid 1946 had there been no bombing campaign. They kept their research at an R+D level rather than precieding to industrilisation in order to find more efficient ways of achieving enrichment etc and decided to go for a reactor as a stepping stone. It's possible they would have bypassed gaseous diffusion and caulutrons entirely.

The B8 Hairgerloch critical reactor, which proved reactor dimensioning, could certainly have been expected to have been conducted a year earliier given the Heavy water and Uraniun they need and its slightly enlarged succesor variant (50% volumetrical) go critical had the researchers not have been forced to move from their city institutes or have loss so much equipment from bombing.


You might also cite what the projects were "that led to much dupilcation of effort and wasted effort on projects that had no chance of effecting the war being fought." and how that was worse than the allies.

All these comments about Germany being doomed from the start I dont agree with. In 1939 the Germans held most of the advantages, the alliers had virtully none. Victory was never a "slam dunk". What destroyed the Nazis was a mixture of their own mismanagement (I am not completely dioscounting that claim, just that its an incomplete explanation), coupled with superior allied efforts and organization. All of the allied nations were geared this way, but i will use the british because they were the moral heart of the allied effort. without them, the war would have ended in June 1940.

Starting with the pre-war preparations, Britains effort was much more about getting the production lines set up for the "big push" once the war started. Their pilot training schemes didnt happen just by accident. The German efforts were much more "traditional"....essentially "hand crafted" pilots. Good quality, well trained, but too few to win the battle. Britain set up to churn aircrew out at a phenomenal rate....mass produced "woolworth" pilots that in the end learned the hard way, and eventually bested their opponents both qualitatively and quantitatively. same basic pattern for military production. the germans, with their mania for size and technology built some of the most advanced military machines for war, but the cost, complexity and reliabiltity of many of these items left much to be desired. There are reasons why a country like Russia, with a prewar industry about 70% that of prewar germany (and then also losing about 30% of its prewar capacity to German occupation) could nevertheless outproduce the germans by factors of 2, 3, 4 to 1.

The Axis never managed their foreaign relations in anything like a competent manner. They basically were in it to screw everyone, in particuloar their "allies" for all they could. They failed to appreciate the importance of alliances.....the case in point being the attack on the russians. by contrast. britains sole aim from 1940 was the formation of a collective alliance of anyone who would oppose the Germans. The British were highly successful in that. this was not just a case of the world having an aversion to the Nazis (though that helped). Every country was in some way or another employed to containn or confront the Nazis, and the british did that by a mixture of different approaches, but always aware of the frailties and strengths of the country they were dealing with. The British were responsible for the formation and holding together of the grand alliance . but even less significant countries, like Spain, or Brazil, were either led to joining the war effort, or constrianed from assisting too much the efforts of the Nazis. As the war progressed the nazis found themselves, cut off, isolated and starved out. this was as much about the diplomacy undertaken by the allies (in this case led by the British) as it was in the application of the blockade.

In the end the allied effort was the classic application of seapower over a continentally focussed land power. Even the Russian effort whilst so obviously focussed on the land was in part dependant on the continued control of the oceans. Without that control, the Russians could not have done what they did. The Germans did mount a serious challenge to allied control and use of the oceans, but with American industrial power on board, this eventually proved a futile effort.

But to try and argue that all of this was written into the stars somehow, that things would have happened as they did "anyway" is a quintessntially american view of how the war was won. It presupposes that nothing happened until December 7 1941, and is to short change the British of their greatest victory....the formation and holding topgether of a grand alliance that was anything but a "foregone conclusion".

As I already stated, certainly many factors helped the Nazi defeat, but this don't change the fact that the industrial advantage only was not synonymous of vitory. The decisive battles were close encounters were the man in command that decided their outcomes.

I make this post as an ex chemist.
The Germans were years away from a workable atomic weapon in 1945. Heisenberg had made some very serious mistakes which in the absence of a working group to provide qualified peer review of his work had gone uncorrected. The departure of many scientists,the very people capable of such review (Hahn,Strassmann,Frisch,indirectly Szilard to name a few and of course Einstein himself) and their inability to share research with the international community as a result of the idiotic nazi racial laws must have had an effect on this.
No wonder the German atomic scientists were astonished when they heard that the Americans had not only built a working device but also dropped it from an aeroplane.
The reactor mentioned above is one of the first steps on a long and arduous journey and is a long,long way from an atomic bomb. Let's get this into perspective. The U.S was running the Manhattan project and the Germans were running a small reactor with a multiplication factor of less than seven,using heavy water as a moderator, in the cellar of a pub. It was a very picturesque setting unlike Los Alamos and they didn't have a couple of billion dollars to spend. Heisenberg and Diebner never really came close to building a critical reactor and were even further away from building a weapon. I've seen their attempts described by other physicists as "feeble".
Cheers
Steve

Parsifal, I learned about the effects with the blockade with you, and have to say that it's a part of WWII history that few people know about. Without the blockade and Anglo-American naval power, Festunga Europe would be turned into a industrial boost for Hitler's war machine that probably would be very difficult for Stalin contain, not to mention that the Lend-Lease would hardly be present as well.

Here there's a very interesting article about the blockade: Blockade of Germany (1939

Parsifal's post wraps it up.

"... In 1939 the Germans held most of the advantages, the allies had virtually none. Victory was never a "slam dunk".

No one is claiming a slam dunk, Parsifal, .... but to state: "the allies had virtually none" is to willfully ignore the fact that Germany and Germans were saddled (politically, economically and militarily) with a leader and a political party that was DELUSIONAL and RACIST. Such a country - Germany, under the Nazis - faced with wealthier, more democratic and less avaricious opponents was doomed to failure from the outset. Germans opted to misread their own history as a panacea for their 1918 woes - instead of recognizing their plight and addressing it in an empirical fashion.

MM