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Subject: What if the Nazis never invaded Russia.....
juan grande    8/25/2008 12:46:59 AM
If Operation Barbarossa never took place, would western Europe still be German well into the 1950s?
 
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JFKY    Wicked   8/29/2008 10:23:22 AM
I would argue that by 1941/42  Crete would be German, and that Malta would be German, that the Luftwaffe would be able to dominate the Med. and allow an airborne/amphibious landing on Malta.  That the Wehrmacht would have several divisions available to send to No. Africa, and that Britain would lose the Middle East and her oil.
 
I think nuclear weapons would have been the knock-out blow, but it wold have taken more than two, ASSUMING the US was involved in the European conflict.  But if Britain is out of the war, there is no conflict to be involved in, so it's not clear to me that the US would have gotten involved and so would there have been a Manhattan Program at all, and would the US have the need to use the "bomb" against Germany?
 
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StevoJH       8/30/2008 10:55:07 PM

Yes, I know that Rommel was defeated due to logistics.  One of the primary reasons for this was the consant headache of the RN and the RAF pounding his supply ships.  He lost because the allies were able to slow him down enough and force enough maneuver he used more fuel than was shipped in.  I dont think that scenario would be any different but it could be.  Without Barbarossa two questions dictate whether Rommel would be successful:

1)  Would the greater number of available troops been enough to force his way through more rapidly and "outrace" the allied blockade?  Rommel almost got Egypt without additional forces.  Put more intial forces there and he has a greater chance of blowing past the Allies without the numerous withdrawals and extreme maneuvers which bled him dry. 

 

2)  Would the greater available Luftwaffe assets been able to pressure the Allied presence in the Western Med. enough to cause their blockade to slacken?  If more supplies could get through Rommel has more time to get to Egypt.  Once he gets to the Eastern Med the Germans have Crete, and the Allied suppy lines either go all the way round the continent or through the heavy Luftwaffe presence of the Eastern Med.  Egypt is key: he gets to the Nile/Sinai, he wins. 

 

The allies barely hung onto Egypt as it was, especially with Monty at the helm.... *shudders*  If either of those two answers are yes then the allies have a big, big problem.

 

As far as taking Malta is concerned I dont think it was feasible.  Maybe they could have been starved out via blockade but the Germans lacked amphibious capability.  Invasion by sea was out.  Alternatively, after Crete Hitler forbade any large airborne operations.  Malta was going to remain British for the duration IMO.  Those are the only two ways you can take an island.  Their presence there could be neutralized though in a way akin to what the U.S. did to Rabaul in the Pacific.  Of course, this demands naval supremacy which Germany/Italy never had...

 

As an aside: the Atomic Bombs were not knockout blows.  If Japan hadnt been on the ropes initially it would not have led to surrender.  Hell, even with two Nuclear Weapons, and the Soviet Invasion blowing through Manchuria the hardliners were still arguing to fight back.  They are powerful weapons, but it would simply have marked an escalation.  Would we have used them if Japan could have retaliated?  If we had nuked Germany then there V2's would have begun raining down poison gas on London.  Using nuclear weapons against an opponent that is not cornered with no practical response is an escalation, nothing more.  The one and only way this could have managed to force Germany to the bargaining table is if the Fat Man or Little Boy tagged Hitler.  THAT might result in something.  Just nuking a city...that just angers/scares your oponent and forces them to launch a WMD in kind. 

V2's and gas on London would result in the 1000 bomber Lancaster raids decimating a city in Germany each night with gas. You forget that Britain had massive stocks of chemical weapons, but like hitler did not use them because of the possibility of retaliation.
 
Which raises an interesting point, were chemical weapons used on the eastern front and could their use have slowed or stopped the Russian advance into Germany?
 
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FJV    Gas on the Eastern front   8/31/2008 11:54:37 AM
If I'm not mistaken Guderians comments on using gas during WW1 in his book "Achtung Panzer".  He commented that using gas during WW1 really was only effective the first time, because of suprise. After that the enemy adapted and the use of gas wasn't effective anymore. So on top of a possible retaliation and negative side effects, there is the fact that the use of gas hasn't proven to be really all that effective.

Using gas on the Eastern front would IMHO be effective for a very short time if at all. It depends on how many of the Russian soldiers were issued gas masks during WW2.

Also when you compare it to more modern times the Iraqi use of gas during the Iran Iraq war effectiveness rapidly declined after the Iranian leadership finally decided to equip their forces with gas masks.
 
 
 
 
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McFriday       8/31/2008 2:40:12 PM

I would argue that by 1941/42  Crete would be German, and that Malta would be German, that the Luftwaffe would be able to dominate the Med. and allow an airborne/amphibious landing on Malta.  That the Wehrmacht would have several divisions available to send to No. Africa, and that Britain would lose the Middle East and her oil.
JFKY has got it spot on here about Malta, not only in my opinion but that of German generals debriefed by US intelligence in Italy at the end of the European war.
A search at the Combined Arms Research Library Archives, Fort Leavenworth will produce the original transcripts referring to their plans and the reasons why it wasn't done.
Malta was indefensible for much of the early part of the war and only Hitler's focus on Barbarossa and backing up Mussolini in Greece side tracked him.
Especially after the Churchill's folly in Greece and Crete all British forces in Africa were critically  weakened. Without Barbarossa it is fair to say Malta would have been taken and Suez lost to Britain. It was not plain sailing for Britain in Iran and Iraq either and with German Forces taking Egypt I don't see how they could be held, as by December 1941 Malaya was invaded and India/Burma soon threatened.  Therefore no reinforcements from the East. Britain would be impotent and may have had to sue for peace.
With this success, would Hitler have risked bringing the USA into the European Theatre? I doubt it.
As mentioned by others though, Stalin didn't trust Hitler [or Turkey]  and all these German successes would have forced his hand sooner than later. I agree with those who suggest Russia would have attacked Germany rather than see itself surrounded.
Anyone who doubts how vulnerable Malta was until 1942 should re-check British accounts of how weakly it was held. They couldn't believe they weren't invaded the day after Italy joined the war, for example.
Also the greatest danger to Cunningham's fleet was the Luftwaffe and he already had plans to retire the fleet to the Red Sea if the situation got any worse in Egypt.
With Malta in German hands, Franco may well have changed his mind and let German Forces advance through Spain to invade Gibraltar, which the Brits realised was indefensable from the landward side. Yes, both sides had plans for this operation.
Malta was the key left unturned and Barbarossa diverted Hitler from much easier and quicker victories in the Med and Middle East that may well have gained him many allies as the British were not well loved in the region.
Even if they wanted to act, the USA couldn't have intervened before 1943 and it would be too late by then.
The Japanese run may even have pushed on to Australia as it would have lost 3 divisions, most of its army, in Egypt had Rommel succeeded there by late 1941.
Enough from me,
Cheers,
Mac

 




 
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McFriday       8/31/2008 2:43:03 PM
Please note,
The first paragraph above is a quote from JFKY, I missed putting the marks.
Cheers,
Mac

 
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eldnah       8/31/2008 3:49:42 PM
I believe the key to the Med was not Malta but Pantelleria, halfway between Sicily and Tunis and further west than Malta. Already part of Italy, had the airfield been further developed and been properly stocked with sufficient numbers of Ju-88 dive bomber models, SM-79s torpedo bombers with  concomitant numbers of Me 109s, FW 190s and Macchi 202/5s the Eastern Mediterranean could have been sealed off  and an adequate air-bridge and protected sea lanes established between Italy and Africa been established. Without a war in Russia the resources would have been available and Africa, the Middle-East and Southwest Asia would likely have been German. I suspect though when Germany moved east of Syria and entered Iraq and threatened Persia, Stalin would have attacked Germany. An interesting corollary is if Hitler never declared war on the US after Pearl Harbor.
 
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PowerPointRanger    Interesting   8/31/2008 11:16:57 PM
An interesting premise.
 
However, I think both Hitler and Stalin were so paranoid/aggressive that a conflict between them was inevitable.
(Do you honestly think Hitler would have shared Europe with Stalin?  Or vice versa?)
 
 
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StobieWan       9/1/2008 8:18:15 AM
I'd based my original comments about the progress of the war around the concept that Hitler's notoriously dicky tummy gave out and he called a halt to the Eastern offensive - and that everything else went on as otherwise - including the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbour and the subsequent declaration of war, on the US by Germany (there was debate about calling for a declaration against Germany in Congress, Hitler removed that debate thankfully)
 
What most folks seem to be overlooking is the sheer *impact* of the nuclear weapon at the time - no-one knew that the US didn't have stocks for a third weapon (assuming Gadget was still expended as a test) - you'd just see one Japanese and one German city vanish overnight, and wonder which city was next and when. Just shrugging off this sort of damage from a single weapon isn't realistic. Both axis powers would have to assume that more weapons were available and they'd have to take the threat very seriously indeed. Either way it plays out, unilateral ownership of nuclear weapons means you win the war. Responding en masse with chemical weapons against mainland Britain wasn't an option after the battle of Britain - we had air supremacy and the amount of chemical agents capable of being delivered from the air by the Luftwaffe was too low to deliver a knockout blow in response. Worse, the counterstrike from the RAF and USAF would have been vast, and Hitler would have known this, or have been deposed if he'd attempted to fight on.
 
As a side note, the Royal Navy would at least have some pressure taken off them in supporting the arctic convoys if Russian aid and involvement in the war weren't present.
 
Barbarossa was Hitler's worst mistake of the war however (admittedly against some stiff competition !)
 
 Ian
 
 
 
 
 
 

 
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FlyingDutchman       9/1/2008 9:11:46 AM
Even with Malta in Italian/German hands and the entire RN on the bottom of the sea, the sheer size of the ports available to the Axis in N-Africa make it impossible to supply more than a handfull of divisions.
 
Even if, by divine intervention/green men from Mars the Axis does make it to Alexandria and the Suez channel, that still doesn't mean they have the logistical ability to take the Middle-East.
Even if the British lose the Middle-East, there's still no problem. Posters that think the world was dependent on M-E oil in those days are wrong. The USA is the biggest oil-exporter during WWII and for all intent the only supplier of high-octane fuel. The British sure don't need the oil in the M-E.
 
I'm waiting for someone to bring up Hitler's dream plan of 'storming' through the world's most inhospitable terrain (desert and mountains) to Baku from N-Africa...
 
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JFKY       9/1/2008 11:46:40 AM
The Middle East was ripe for rebellion, against the British...IF the Germans had advanced into the ME in 1941, then Syria, Lebanon, and Iraq might very well have fallen, as well as Egypt.  It might not have taken that much, Rommel, with 50 tanks was a threat, give Rommel 300-500 tanks, 6-10 battalions, a Panzer Korps and things might have turned out far differently.
 
As to the US and oil, you realize that the US was NEUTRAL.  What if the Good ole' US of A says, "No oil for you!", to Britain or says, "Cash on the Barrel-Head for that Crude, Dude."  You have heard of the Neutrality Acts right, the Lend-Lease Deals were ways of circumventing them/it...Combatants were on a cash and carry basis with the US, your cash and YOUR SHIPS, to haul the swag away in, all designed to prevent the US from being pulled into a European War.
 
Bottom-Line: an Advance into he ME might have made a tremendous amount of difference, and it didn't take more than a tenth of a tithe of the forces for Barbarossa.
 
Lastly: what if Stalin DID attack in 1941/42?  What makes anyone think that he'd have done well.  The Red Army did not become combat effective until 1943, two years AFTER the start of the war.  Assuming the disaster of June 1941 set them back a year, it would STILL have taken the Red Army a year to become effective...The Soviets attack in 1941/42, don't become good until 1942/1943, the Wehrmacht defeats their initial invasion, ripostes and occupies the Ukraine...a SOVIET attack changes the diplomatic game, and if Britain is out of the war, then there is no US intervention, and Hitler fights a One-Front War.  He MIGHT be able to take Stalin....a delay of Barbarossa and a focus on defeating Britain in the Med/Middle East opens up some possibilities.
 
Second Bottom-Line: Thank God for our enemies, Hitler and Usama are both are best allies in our fight(s) with them.
 
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