Could Germany and the Axis powers have Won the Second World War?

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worldbuilder RE:fallout 10/7/2004 8:09:47 AM

i was talking about the german army and the german deficit(this year's is the biggest in history) and mentioned some comments made by my german colleagues in the army. one from the east coast of canada told me there is still alot of fear of germany. elsewhere i heard that germany has a cap on its current military size, not allowed to exceed 300 000 members or something like that. if germany rolled out 10 shiny new nukes on the tarmac tomorrow i imagine there would be a very bad reaction. but, i was just wondering what the extent would be. what happens if we break the cap, or build nukes, or start building an aircraft carrier, transport fleet, start sending peacekeepers everywhere? whether did this under a united europe or alone probably has alot to do with how the world would react. but when i hear some of our members of parliament talking about sending tank bataillions to kossovo, it doesnt seem too far fetched. i personally dont see german in a different way than other countries. same rules, same rights(sovereignty). its hard to find someone these days who was around during the war. we have huge reparations, economy approaching crisis, and lotsa discontent at foreigners. i look at it all relaxedly, but most young germans don't, they're afraid. afraid of the future. i lived in canada for 9 years, and canada exists almost entirely out of ausländer, or foreigners, unfortunately we killed most of the natives off, so we learned to get along with our cultural diversity. ermany still has to do this. ethnic tensions are high here. the other week i got my nose broke because i got caught in the crossfire of a fight between turks and skins at a disco. never had probs like that in canada. my general feeling and fear is that germany and the world community are on a collision course. im not talking about the government thats in power now, never before has a german govt gotten such low ratings. when a truly representative govt comes in, i see trouble. thats how i see it as a canuck/german. btw, i lived from ages 0-11 in germany, then 11-19 in canada, and 19-present in germany again, serving in the draft. i realise my posts are a little confused, im busy right now, i fly to kabul on monday for a 4 month tour. so, do you think my fears are justified? im sure the aussie stance is better thought out than zimbabwes for example, but how do you think the world will react? i wish u a safe election.

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worldbuilder RE:fall out; i made a mistake 10/7/2004 8:19:07 AM

reading through my last post i noticed i wrote something badly wrong. i didnt mean to write that gemrany needs to kill off its natives or something horrible like that. i dont condone killing any people. wrote that whole post pretty scatteredly, sorry. i meant to say that 500 years ago all kinds of nationalities came to what is now canada, and sooner or later learned to live in harmony. there are unfortunately very few natives left. in germany, on the other hand, there are about 70 million natives, and they distinguish themselves and separate themselves from the 10 million 'foreigners'. they dont mix well, and that was what i meant. someday, multiculturalism will arrive here too. ive heard there is still much segregation in america. someday i hope to find out for myself by going there.

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Yimmy RE:fall out; i made a mistake 10/7/2004 12:49:30 PM

Even if Germanty were tommorow allowed to build an army of any size, and have nuclear weaponry and aircraft carriers etc; I doubt any thing would be done of it. Germany still hasnt even developed a fully professional army, how would the Germans afford to crew an aircraft carrier? That said, some of the old rules have been brushed asside, for instance I believe Germany was also denied anti-ship missiles at a time... but they clearly have them.

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Candian grunt RE:fallout 10/7/2004 1:36:28 PM

I served in germany from 1986 to 91 with Nato, I don't recall anyone felling afraid of Germany or her Army. I forget the name of the agreemant that capped all NATO countries forces in Europe it limited troops, tanks IFV etc...to certain numbers. But i thought this would be finished as Warsaw pact break-up.... You also mentioned Nuk's, germany's ground force did have access to Tac Nuke wpns provided by the US, these wpns would be issued to german arty forces upon orders by the NATO Commander...perhaps they still do...I don't think you have much to worry about in referance to what the world thinks as you have already been providing troops to Afgan, and other areas. What Canadian troops do think about is that the entire EU should be policing it's own back yard with UN troops or NATO backed troops from the EU.... Ethic tensions were high when i was there as well when the turks just started to arrive....and we are having our own problems here in Canada with persons of different races, not on the scale of the US or Germany but none the less problems ... Good luck with your tour in Kabul...PS the germany's have the best drinking mess in Kabul...

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worldbuilder RE:fallout 10/7/2004 4:16:29 PM

a turk broke my nose 2 weeks ago, but it ended good. with the cf in germany! lahr, baden, geilenkirchen, and messstetten must sound familiar to you. i have a bottle of asbach uralt from the cf in my attic. with a typo though, it says cfb europe on it. i dont know much about this cap on german forces, just in the news once.

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Candian grunt RE:fallout 10/7/2004 4:52:17 PM

Baden served with the PPCLI and the RCR there. Lived in wintersdorf actually....it was the best years of my life...i really liked Germany. but the army does not have any jobs there anymore...

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bigfella RE:Worldbuilder 10/7/2004 9:45:04 PM

Worldy, Speaking as an Aussie I have never had the sense that people fear germany now. There may be some lingering concerns in E.Europe or Russia, but not in the west. After the war germany faced up to its past and its crimes and determined to take a different course. It has become a bastion of democracy. Sadly many other nations have not examined their past with as much honesty. Japan continues to see itself as a victim of WW2, Russia & China are yet to deal with the mass-murder committed by the communists, while France is still trying to delude itself that it is a major power. Germany is obviously not perfect, but it should be congratulated for what it has achieved. Good luck in kabul. I hear that german rules of engagement are pretty ordinary, so keep your head down. You might even bump into a few Aussies, they'll be happy to have a beer with you.

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bsl RE:Could Germany and the Axis powers have Won the Second World War? 10/7/2004 10:14:54 PM

"Military power is easily calculated; it is manpower and industrial capacity." No. It's not. Those are factors contributing to military power, but not the same thing as power. "Military power can be enhanced by, leadership...." Leadership isn't a modifying factor. It's a defining factor. Putting 1 and 2 together would "prove" that the UK and France were more militarily powerful than Germany in 1940. They weren't. They had substantial potential power, but, in practice, their inferior leadership (by which, in this instance, I include a number of related factors, including national resolve, political backing, along with the way it's generals thought and acted) led to a rapid and far reaching defeat, in 1940. When examining complex issues, we have a habit of ignoring factors which seem, in context, secondary, or which, in the specific instance, tend to cancel each other out. So, for instance, there's a tendency when examining the military power of advanced countries with similar cultures, similar political systems, similar histories, to ignore factors which are present and significant, but tend to be more or less equal among the countries under examination. For instance, for nearly the last 200 years, the European powers had similar potentials to raise manpower. IOW, they tended to use similar mobilizations schemes at similar times, and had economies which could support similar levels of mobilization at any given moment. And, so, when looking at the manpower end of the power equation, it was easy and convenient to simply look at the populations of the countries and apply a fraction representing the size of forces practicable. But, this was very much a short hand analysis. It doesn't work when looking at the Napoleonic Wars, for instance, because, at that time, France came up with a system markedly different from that used by the rest of Europe (the levee en masse) which allowed France to put a vastly larger percentage of it's male population into uniform than any of it's European enemies could. Another example of the point I'm making is the way we tend to assume a certain level of what we might call competence and committment when we look at European wars for centuries, or at the major players in WW2. For instance, in the case of WW2, looking from *before* the fighting started, analysts tended to assume that the combattants would fight with the tenacity shown in WW1. Well, Germany, the UK, Russia, and, later, America, did, in Europe. France did not. And, this marked change in conduct threw all the prewar calculations of the balance of "power" between Germany (and Italy) and France and Britain completely off. The bottom line is that "military power" is actually a complex, slippery notion. We all have some rough idea what it is, but, on close examination, it's a deep topic, with a lot of subtleties.

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neutralizer RE:Could Germany and the Axis powers have Won the Second World War? 10/8/2004 8:42:10 AM

"Military power is easily calculated; it is manpower and industrial capacity." Reallly, can I suggest just a teensy bit more research. Most modern western military thinking, some of it available in top level doctrinal publications on the web, have a lot more factors than this. Most start with something on the lines of 'Intellectual', 'Moral' and 'Physical' and then decompose from there. Given that the German General Staff managed to loose two major wars in the space of 30 years then you have to question their intellectual capabilities!

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fall out RE:Could Germany and the Axis powers have Won the Second World War? 10/8/2004 9:24:16 AM

"Given that the German General Staff managed to loose two major wars in the space of 30 years then you have to question their intellectual capabilities " - given that they fought against the world (at least the major players and many minor) and nearly won both times isn't a bad effort i would say, one country taking on many. in ww1 the germans had the best overall level of training (thanks largely to prussia) and the best overall level of officers, in ww2 they had the best generals by far ('cept for patton, monty and zukov) and a revolutionary tactic that NO ONE else was able to match until after the war; even in 44 n 45 when the war was lost, there were many examples of the germans using combined arms to it's utmost potential, something that the allies simply couldn't copy. given that, Germany in ww2 especially, had an extremely good chance at winning IMO.

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