What went wrong most for Germany?

I heard that Goering sent some message to Hitler saying he had taken over but...it obviously didn't last long. I knew that Hitler had expelled Goering from the Nazi party. I did not know about Himmler...however, we do know the fate of both men. Death by suicide. Goering at the Nuremburg trials.

Yep and Goebbels too. Except that he killed all of his children too.

I think Hindenburg was Germany's biggest problem he allowed Adolf in and failed to assist his people at all post 1918 he could have improved the nations lot immensely but was too weak to act against the reparations that where destroying the German nation.
Hitler showed that Germany could recover but went way too far the other way which resulted in the nation being destroyed for a second time in side 35 years.

I think one of the reasons was many in the German Staff didnt understand the economic potential of the US. They saw a country still wracked in depression and having a 4th rate military. I dont think it occured to them what would happen if the factories started to mass produce weapons for war and not razor blades.

Theres a book "Why the Allies Won", which makes a point that the best generals in Germany commanded the field units, and the engineers and logisticians got the rest. In the US, it was the opposite. It explains why the Germans seemed to do so well in battle, but then have to withdraw from lack of support.

In the end, they lost more to attrition than anything else. Hitler had his role in it, but the mind set of the whole army also played a part.

Yes but that mindset of the Army was brouht on because Hitlers Cronies were in command of the Army.

The biggest blunder is when Hitler declared war on the US when the US was going to concentrate on Japan only and not Germany. If Japan had shown the same loyalty and declared war on the Russia during the fall of 1941, Russia would have had to leave the troops near the japanese area and Moscow would have been open to attack.Or at the very least, Germany would not have been beaten so badly during the winter of 1941/42. A second mistake was when Hitler ordered the army into the Caucasus? leaving a huge salient that was a juicy target of attack for encirclement.(especially when the wing was guarded by other axis forces of dubious value)

RAGMAN said:

The biggest blunder is when Hitler declared war on the US when the US was going to concentrate on Japan only and not Germany. If Japan had shown the same loyalty and declared war on the Russia during the fall of 1941, Russia would have had to leave the troops near the japanese area and Moscow would have been open to attack.Or at the very least, Germany would not have been beaten so badly during the winter of 1941/42. A second mistake was when Hitler ordered the army into the Caucasus? leaving a huge salient that was a juicy target of attack for encirclement.(especially when the wing was guarded by other axis forces of dubious value)

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Exactly. Now guys heres something. Hitler hated communism. Russia was the largest country with communist. If Hitler had been smart, he would have allowed Russia to show itself and the true meaning of Communism to the allies. That way if Hitler had invaded Russia, he could of had the support of the other countries into doing this. There would have been a strong chance of Germany defeating the USSR.

Think about it. The Korean war or maybe even Vietnam would nver have happened. Why? Because USSR gave full support to Korea and China. Then later China and Russia gave guns, bombs, ammo and supplies to the North Vietnamese.

Hitler also could have handled the Jewish issue better. Instead of being evil and ordering their deaths, he could of had sent some out of the country. Thats it.

If Hitler had done this, he could have prevented 2 more wars that America would later fight. Also ridding the world of Communism and preventing the Cold War. We may have still fought with China, but we would have weakended them so badly Communism would have been destroyed.

Germany probably could have become a powerful country next to USA or UK. Hitler would have gone down as the leader who destroyed Communism and left it at that by not invading other countries beside Russia and recieving support from other nations. Germany would have been a leading power today. Almost as strong as the US. Germany would have been our allied when it came down to liberating countries.

The world would have been better if Hitler did this instead of invading Poland on September 1st, 1939.

Fascism, i dont think it would have lated but it would have changed too democracy very peacfully.

You are joking...aren't you? P-38, have you ever heard of a book called Mein Kampf? It's not an easy book to read, but I'd suggest that you give it a look sometime.

I was wondering the same thing, NS...

P38 Pilot said:

RAGMAN said:

The biggest blunder is when Hitler declared war on the US when the US was going to concentrate on Japan only and not Germany. If Japan had shown the same loyalty and declared war on the Russia during the fall of 1941, Russia would have had to leave the troops near the japanese area and Moscow would have been open to attack.Or at the very least, Germany would not have been beaten so badly during the winter of 1941/42. A second mistake was when Hitler ordered the army into the Caucasus? leaving a huge salient that was a juicy target of attack for encirclement.(especially when the wing was guarded by other axis forces of dubious value)

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Exactly. Now guys heres something. Hitler hated communism. Russia was the largest country with communist. If Hitler had been smart, he would have allowed Russia to show itself and the true meaning of Communism to the allies. That way if Hitler had invaded Russia, he could of had the support of the other countries into doing this. There would have been a strong chance of Germany defeating the USSR.

Think about it. The Korean war or maybe even Vietnam would nver have happened. Why? Because USSR gave full support to Korea and China. Then later China and Russia gave guns, bombs, ammo and supplies to the North Vietnamese.

Hitler also could have handled the Jewish issue better. Instead of being evil and ordering their deaths, he could of had sent some out of the country. Thats it.

If Hitler had done this, he could have prevented 2 more wars that America would later fight. Also ridding the world of Communism and preventing the Cold War. We may have still fought with China, but we would have weakended them so badly Communism would have been destroyed.

Germany probably could have become a powerful country next to USA or UK. Hitler would have gone down as the leader who destroyed Communism and left it at that by not invading other countries beside Russia and recieving support from other nations. Germany would have been a leading power today. Almost as strong as the US. Germany would have been our allied when it came down to liberating countries.

The world would have been better if Hitler did this instead of invading Poland on September 1st, 1939.

Fascism, i dont think it would have lated but it would have changed too democracy very peacfully.

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Where do you come up with this?

Lets see the allies and the Soviet Union were fighting the same enemy so the US and England would not have just let Germany roam through Russia.

As for the Jewish Situation just like NS said read "Mein Kampf". An Evil Book but will give you an insight of what was going through Hitlers mind. Even if WW2 had not happened he probably would have doen the Holocaust anyhow.

Attack Russia instead of Poland? How would he do this? Please look at a map and see where Russia lies and where Germany lies. Poland is smack dap right between them. Hitler had to invade other countries in order to get to Russia and therefore the Allies would fight against Germany.

Read some History Books and not the ones that biased based off of one Countries exploits.

P38, the western world knew exactly about communism. Read the following, its from a web site.

"In 1932-33 millions of Ukrainians died in the largest Famine of the 20th century. This Famine was not caused by a natural calamity such as drought or epidemic or pestilence. It was not the result of devastation or privation caused by a cataclysmic event such as war.

The Famine in Ukraine was engineered, orchestrated and directed from the Kremlin. It was implemented by Stalin and his comrades in order to complete Ukraine's subjugation to Moscow. Starvation became the tool and the Ukrainian farmers became the main victims."

http://www.faminegenocide.com/resources/backgrounder.html

P38, did you know the US did not recognize the USSR untill Nov 1933?

P38, Did you know that in 1918, US troops actually fought INSIDE of Russia on the side of the anti-communists?

P38, did you know that in 1939, the greatest hope of France and Britain is that Hitler would fight it out with Stalin and leave western Europe out of the fight?

I myself think that we owe it to the Russians for so weakening Germany, we could successfully invade Normandy. Consider the alternative if we werent in Germany by the time we deployed the first atmic bomb. Berlin was going to be nuked.

syscom3 said:

I myself think that we owe it to the Russians for so weakening Germany, we could successfully invade Normandy. Consider the alternative if we werent in Germany by the time we deployed the first atmic bomb. Berlin was going to be nuked.

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I agree. If Germany were not fighting a 2 front war at the time. D-Day may have been differently and the war may have lasted longer.

I agree that Germany would have been Nuked but I dont think it would have been Berlin. I think it would have been a smaller city somewhere.

Well you can also thank the Russians for powering China and even North Korea causing two more wars with a devasating effect. We still have a problem with N.Korea this very day. Having to make peace agreements fearing that the Korean leader may hit the US or some other country with a nuke.

I actually thought of that plan all up on my own. It was just a little idea that what if Hitler had never been som evil and cruel and had not ordered Holocaust excutions.

With Communism, the world is under a little threat. Hell there are communist in Cuba and where i live they are considered our "next-door-neighbors."

Im not praising Hitler. He was sick, demented, and insane. But what if history took another toll. What if Hitler hadnt done the stuff he did to start a Second World War? We knew that Russia would sooner or later start invading other countries. For example, they made a attempt in the 1980's into invading Afghanisatn and almost turing that into USSR terroritory having not only power in the east but in the Middle East!

Alder, you are right about the Nuclear bomb. Germany was producing their own nuke and could have dropped it. But history plays itself.

Nazi Germany was stopped. Soviet Union grew. Korean war later came knocking at our doors. Soldiers later fought Communist in Vietnam.

Today Communism still exists. It exists today and hopefully one day it will be destroyed. It may be a war I might have to fight. Who knows?

P38 Pilot said:

Alder, you are right about the Nuclear bomb. Germany was producing their own nuke and could have dropped it. But history plays itself.

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Where did I say that Germany was going to use a Nuke? I never said that, what I said was that Germany would have eventually got nuked.

P38 Pilot said:

Today Communism still exists. It exists today and hopefully one day it will be destroyed. It may be a war I might have to fight. Who knows?

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I seriously doubt we will see a war like the one you are thinking about in our lifetimes again.

" I myself think that we owe it to the Russians for so weakening Germany, we could successfully invade Normandy"

Well, it depends on how you approach it. May or maybe not...

Of course the eastern front "drained" Germany´s resources. I find it amusing many researchers and history buffs use such assertion to imply some sort of German incompetence.

It was by far the largest front Germany opened, both in terms of territory and of human/material resources of the enemy.

So what do those researchers would have liked Germany to do?

Oh, easy answer: to launch Barbarossa with just 2 panzer divisionen and 5 infantry divisions, and to keep the 90% of the Heer in occupied France waiting for the eventual return of the small and shocked BEF resting and refitting in its island. Wasn´t Hitler such an idiot in using the bulk of the Heer in the USSR?


To affirm Russia "weakened" Germany is a somewhat tricky game of words.

Can be quite the oppposite, the German smash of 1941, 1942 made the soviet giant stumble.

The USSR, sorry for my countrymen, would have never get past the Dniester (that being generous) without the Lend Lease, and the massive build up of the 8th and 15th Air Foces in Europe, no matter how many books and articles russian WWII websites continue releasing to "prove" the war would have ended the same with or without LL and the help of the armies of the west.

Likewise, the USA was, in fact, very dependant of soviet blood. A regime such as Stalin´s had a valuable item: the lives of millions of soldiers, partisans and citizens to be spared waging the war with an astonishingly high death toll accepted. Add LL and the fleets of heavy bombers of both RAF and USAAF in the west, also their armies.

Any amateur can come up with the most likely of the outcomes.


The USA also had a numerically juicy human base; a fundamental difference, however, is evident. The USA is not willing to spend human lives following the bolshevik fashion, no matter how many millions they can send to the fronts.

In a democracy, USA democracy, the lives of their men DO matter.

A tyranny has the upper hand over a Democracy when a war is being waged.

So? Do we detect some sort of symbiosis here? Both parties equally depending on the effort of the other?

What went wrong? It is most likely Hitler sent his armies out to fight a war impossible to be won, even if he had the most skilled and professional warriors of the planet.


With 2 individuals such as Hitler and Stalin in office in the same period of time in Europe, nothing different from the known facts still discussed today could have happened.

In a way the East Front did weaken Germany. The East front too up so much of Germany's manpower, weapons, tanks, and aircraft. Imagine all that being on the Western Front.

Stalingrad and Kursk removed 500,000 troops from the battlefield. That includes untold numbers of tanks, self propelled guns, towed artillery pieces and aircraft. Now also include the divisons that had to be stationed in the east just to slow down the red army, let alone stop it. In the end, a significant ammount of Germanys resources was consumed in the east.

All it would have taken for the Normandy landings to have failed was to have a few more panzer divisions located near (not on) the beachheads.

I agree syscom.

Ditto.

Well put syscom3.