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The British army did suffer some serious setbacks. However it did have some successes. The period in question, when Hitler was negotiating with Franco, all three forces were running wild. At that time Franco was wise to say no to Hitler.
Churchill sent far too much of the army from North Africa to Greece (he should have sent none). Rommel slipped in and should have taken all of North Africa. The remaining British prevented him taking Tobruk. Rommel was so dumb he also extended his supply lines. Something Montgomery would never do. The British pushed him right back.
- FDR states he will build 50,000 planes per ann in May 1940. British production is on top.
- Hitler sees a future massive air war.
- Hitler to match in the air war needs many planes built.
- Hitler does not have any short term plans to invade the USSR.
- Hitler has a peace pact with the USSR and is receiving resources from the USSR.
- Hitler does not have the resources to build the planes as he is cut of from the rest of the world by the RN blockade.
- The USSR cannot supply the resouces as the country has little surplus.
- Hitler invades the USSR to steal the resources to build his air fleet .
If the RN blockade was not in place Hitler would not need to invade the USSR for its resources to fight the coming air war.
Economics dictates large wars. Tooze is the only in-depth study of the economic side and its effects on the fighting war.
The British army did suffer some serious setbacks. However it did have some successes. The period in question, when Hitler was negotiating with Franco, all three forces were running wild. At that time Franco was wise to say no to Hitler.
Churchill sent far too much of the army from North Africa to Greece (he should have sent none). Rommel slipped in and should have taken all of North Africa. The remaining British prevented him taking Tobruk. Rommel was so dumb he also extended his supply lines. Something Montgomery would never do. The British pushed him right back.
- FDR states he will build 50,000 planes per ann in May 1940. British production is on top.
- Hitler sees a future massive air war.
- Hitler to match in the air war needs many planes built.
- Hitler does not have any short term plans to invade the USSR.
- Hitler has a peace pact with the USSR and is receiving resources from the USSR.
- Hitler does not have the resources to build the planes as he is cut of from the rest of the world by the RN blockade.
- The USSR cannot supply the resouces as the country has little surplus.
- Hitler invades the USSR to steal the resources to build his air fleet .
If the RN blockade was not in place Hitler would not need to invade the USSR for its resources to fight the coming air war.
Economics dictates large wars. Tooze is the only in-depth study of the economic side and its effects on the fighting war.
You can repeat it all you want, it does not make it true.
To the bold...absolutely not. I posted several sources that predate Tooze's work by a decade or more, that he practically takes half of his book from. Tooze found a lot of success by mainstreaming some of the more serious research that had been going on for decades. He told people there was a myth and that he was going to dispel it, even though others had dispelled it decades ago. He sold a lot of books. He is considered by many serious WW2 buffs to be a "second-tier" WW2 historian given his desire to selectively choose facts to support his narrative and that's if you can even get people to agree that he should be called a historian and not an economist.
I've read his book, I've read many others as well, I don't the hate man and he brings up some good points. However, "Wages of Destruction" is not the Holy Bible of WW2...far from it.
I sometimes wonder what would have happened if Hitler had be other than a military fool. If he had not diverted his attack on the RAF's airfields and industries at the last minute the RAF would have been destroyed. Without RAF sea patrols the u-boats could have sunk British shipping in the British harbors. Britain would have literally eaten itself out of house and home as they had depended on the empire, and Ireland, for food for a century or more. Without sea travel there is not food for at least a year. We would probably not have interfered as we would have spent more effort destroying Japan and taking over the British Empire east of Suez.
I have to agree with John-UK here. The RAF was never in any danger of being destroyed during the Battle of Britain. It has been a long running myth that the switch from bombing airfields to cities is the only reason the Luftwaffe failed. In reality, the RAF gained in strength throughout the Battle of Britain while the Luftwaffe declined through attrition.
UK industry was able to churn out fighters at greater than the existing replacement rate. More importantly the fight was happening over England and the Channel (which was controlled by the RN). When British pilots bailed out they did so over their home territory or were quickly rescued by the RN or RAF sea plane patrols. When the Germans bailed out, that pilot most likely became a POW.
Add in advances in radar and tactics and the RAF was never in danger of losing control of the skies over England.
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Hitler's attack on Stalin was his supreme mistake. Russia and Germany had a huge trade established and from my rudimentary studies would have been more then willing to supply war materials, if not actual weapons, to Germany possibly in exchange for the industrial areas of Eastern Europe.
This could have crated a European Union in 1945 instead of waiting until the 1990's.
The two were so ideologically opposed to each other that war seemed almost inevitable. Hitler had long detailed his plans for the conquest of the east. Stalin spent his time preparing for the coming war, knowing that it was only a matter of time. Both claimed the same areas as their "spheres of influence".
That however, does not preclude them cooperating. There was even somewhat high level talks of the Soviet Union outright joining the Axis, but these fell apart over issues related to territorial claims and I'm not sure either side really trusted the other.
You are correct in your assertion, though, that had the two found a way to cooperate, they would have been extremely powerful.
I have to agree with John-UK here. The RAF was never in any danger of being destroyed during the Battle of Britain. It has been a long running myth that the switch from bombing airfields to cities is the only reason the Luftwaffe failed. In reality, the RAF gained in strength throughout the Battle of Britain while the Luftwaffe declined through attrition.
UK industry was able to churn out fighters at greater than the existing replacement rate. More importantly the fight was happening over England and the Channel (which was controlled by the RN). When British pilots bailed out they did so over their home territory or were quickly rescued by the RN or RAF sea plane patrols. When the Germans bailed out, that pilot most likely became a POW.
Add in advances in radar and tactics and the RAF was never in danger of losing control of the skies over England.
The two were so ideologically opposed to each other that war seemed almost inevitable. Hitler had long detailed his plans for the conquest of the east. Stalin spent his time preparing for the coming war, knowing that it was only a matter of time. Both claimed the same areas as their "spheres of influence".
That however, does not preclude them cooperating. There was even somewhat high level talks of the Soviet Union outright joining the Axis, but these fell apart over issues related to territorial claims and I'm not sure either side really trusted the other.
You are correct in your assertion, though, that had the two found a way to cooperate, they would have been extremely powerful.
They could not cooperate. Ideologically as you said they were mortal enemies. Anti-Bolshevism was at the core of Hitler's ideology, and the Communists saw the Nazis as the culmination of oppressive capitalist oligarchy. Their hate for each other was literally built into their respective ideologies. Plus, there was that little issue with Liebensraum and Untermenschen.
Most of you guys have forgotten more than I know about WWII. A guy that lived and breathed and slept WWII said something to this effect:
"Hitler saved Europe from Stalin. Stalin saved the world from Hitler."
Any wisdom to this anecdote?
The Soviet buildup in the 1930s was geared towards an anticipated joint invasion from Nazi Germany and Japan. Stalin was not preparing any invasions of European countries in the 1930s
The Soviet buildup in the 1930s was geared towards an anticipated joint invasion from Nazi Germany and Japan. Stalin was not preparing any invasions of European countries in the 1930s
Many have accused Stalin of working to "export the revolution" or something like that. Neo-Nazis even go so far as to make wild claims that Stalin was preparing an invasion of Germany and that is why Hitler had to launch his pre-emptive strike.
The thing is, Stalin was not in the "export the revolution" camp, that was people like Trotsky who Stalin had already swept aside. Stalin was rather pragmatic when it came to the capabilities of the Soviet Union and his goals. The Red Army was in a rebuilding phase set to culminate in 1943 at the end of the 5-year plan begun in 1938. All of the preparations based on the information and material available from the Soviet archives was related to building an army that could secure the Soviet Union against any invader.
Their strategy for doing that was tied to using "offense as defense". The Red Army was arrayed in three echelons of defense. In case war broke out the first echelon was to launch an invasion of the other nation and take the fight to them while the 2nd and 3rd echelons moved forward to fill in the 1st and 2nd and the reserves moved into the 3rd echelon. The entire goal was to try and not fight on Soviet territory.
Most of you guys have forgotten more than I know about WWII. A guy that lived and breathed and slept WWII said something to this effect:
"Hitler saved Europe from Stalin. Stalin saved the world from Hitler."
Any wisdom to this anecdote?
All I read suggests Hitler actually gave Europe to Stalin.
The memory of WWI was fresh and Russia did not have a very good showing against Germany. They fought well but their logistics were in shambles and their commanders were squabbling among themselves. The Winter War with Finland also showed that the Red Army was not well prepared. It's hard to believe that knowing that Stalin would willingly risk everything by attacking Germany.
He was rebuilding the army and hoping to fight in the buffer zones (which is why in the couple of years before the war he was busy gobbling up pieces of Romania, Finland, and why he jumped at the opportunity to divide Poland). The whole war with Finland happened after Finns rejected a land swap deal which would create a buffer zone west of St Petersburg. Likewise Stalin took a swath of land from Romania that used to be part of the Russian Empire to protect Odessa.
When you plan at striking at the enemy first, you don't spend so much energy setting up the protective buffers between you and them.
Thanks to Hitler's invasion , Stalin was forced to relocate industry East and greatly increase his military industrial output; he had to keep pushing West until Nazis were dealt with once and for all; in 1945 he had millions of hardened troups all throughout Eastern Europe, and the large part of local population in many countries that saw them as liberators.
Without Hitler, he'd likely spend the rest of his days building up Soviet industry to the levels it was in 1945 (something that happened in a very compressed time thanks to invasion, Land Lease, and post-war German reparations ), and playing political games in the neighboring countries using local Commies as proxies.
Last edited by Ummagumma; 07-30-2015 at 10:35 AM..
To sum things up a bit
- the German aggressive to gambling breakthrough strategy and tactic of immediate counterattacks compared to the French "seal off and wait and see" tactic proved decisive along with
- a lot of good luck
- Hitler had a realistic view that an invasion of England was a big gamble and very difficult if not impossible
- Hitler underestimated the difficulties of advance in Russia which had no road network like France, logistics difficulties and the regenerative capabilities of the Red Army. This proved to be one gamble too much.
It shows again how too much of success and good fortune can be your undoing.
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