this post was submitted on 30 Jul 2024
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Arguably their biggest mistake was trying to fight both world superpowers at once, in the USSR and Great Britain backed by the US. I can't imagine how they thought that would go well, but thank fuck they did, cause I wouldn't want to see the world they envisioned.
If you’re brainwashed by your own propaganda, attacking both superpowers probably feels like a good idea
I don't think they wanted to do that. I believe the plan was to pressure the UK to make deal and once that was done they'd be free to attack USSR
My understanding is that Hitler always imagined that the UK would be an ally of his: Germany would be the superpower on the European continent, the UK would have its overseas empire.
Should've known the Brits were way too proud for that hah
Also, how are you supposed to keep control of an overseas empire without a strong seat of power? Even after winning the war the Brits still lost it.
Apparently not that proud
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_Union_of_Fascists
Doesn't seem to have all that popular, especially long term
Shoutout to the time Oswald Mosley showed up in Liverpool with his fascist nonsense and got a rock to the head lol.
Hitler was actually an admirer of the British and initially sought an alliance or other non-hostile arrangement. Only when that didn't work he went to war with them
He considered Britain to have effectively been defeated, in all except a deal having actually been reached. He thought he would have a quick victory over the USSR (always the flaw), then Britain would finally give up and sign a peace treaty.
Operation Bruhbarossa
In their defense, they kicked the everliving shit out of one world power (France) already
They almost did win against the USSR. A harsh winter perhaps was the only thing that stopped them. If that happened, those millions (most were there) would have been freed up to fight in the West.
Edit: Why reply and immediately delete the comment? I would like to hear your thoughts.
What makes you say they almost won? They certainly did not. They could've taken Moscow and it would've made no difference. The USSR had way too many people, people who really didn't want to be taken over by Nazis, and way too many resources from the US/UK for Germany to overpower them. And Germany was doing extremely poorly on resources (especially oil and steel) near the start of the war – the entire reason they invaded the USSR to begin with was because they didn't have enough oil to meet their demands, and they knew they would collapse without seizing the USSR's oil production/reserves (unfortunately for them, that was never going to happen). The British cutting them off from African oil made the issue signicantly more urgent. Germany also had an inferior navy to the UK, not to mention the US, with their only advantage being the large amount of submarines they had. They couldn't realistically project much power outside of where they had land control, and crucially couldn't protect imports from Norway, Africa, and Asia enough to make a big difference.
Germany practically signed their own death warrant by the time they invaded France. They just didn't have the resources or arguably even the manpower to sustain that kind of war, even when controlling most of Europe and a large portion of Africa.
I'll give some numbers to help visualize: During WW2, Germany's peak oil production was 71,000 barrels per day (1944), mostly synthetic oil from coal. For comparison, the United States' peak oil production was 1,875,000 barrels per day (1944) and the USSR's was 700,000 barrels per day (1941). Germany's peak steel production was 29.3 million tons (1944); the United States' was 89.6 million tons (1944). The USSR produced less, about 8.5 million tons at peak (1943), but they also received about 400,000 jeeps, 7,000 tanks, 5,000 other armored vehicles, 12,000 aircraft, and a bunch of other supplies totaling up to about USD$150 billion adjusted for inflation, so steel wasn't really much of an issue. Comparing populations, Germany's was 69 million. The US' was 132 million and the USSR's was 190 million.
Considering that, it may become easier to see why Germany had absolutely no chance against the USSR in the long run; taking major cities doesn't capitulate them. They fought tooth and nail to keep Germany from obtaining Russian & Ukrainian/Belarusian resources, as is famous from using scorched Earth tactics. It was pretty much impossible to successfully invade the USSR almost like how it's impossible to successfully invade the US.
Without American grain shipments, the loss of Ukraine (who wanted to be freed from the soviets, those people were happy they came), the Soviet breadbasket, would have severely weakened the USSR's war capabilities. Likewise, the Western Allies primarily provided the Red Army's motor transport and lots of other things. These supports allowed the Soviet Union to deploy more military-age men in combat roles instead of agricultural or industrial work. Imagine if the West were not willing to do that. This or other differences could have changed the outcome of the war. Things happened as they did, but the USSR was not unbreakable.
It was even more crazy in the Pacific, where single engagements could have turned the tides. Where it even comes down to single spotting of fleets and assessing which fleet that is based on pure luck essentially. I would say Midway was the last chance they had.