Did Hitler really believe he could win? (WW2, war, greatest)

[Trimac20]

I mean he must've known the US would enter the War at some stage...or did he expect help from Japan? Or did he expect the Soviets to really ally with Nazi Germany against the Allies, which became a remote possibility after how badly he treated the Slavs.

I think by late 1941 - after the failed invasion of Russia - Hitler probably knew he was fighting a lost cause but continued because of sheer pride.

[Chango]

Of course he thought he would win... and he had a fair shot at succeeding too!

America was far more isolationist in perspective back then; although we had sympathy for the British, there were A LOT of people sympathetic to the Germans too. In fact, whether we ended up as an English speaking or German speaking country was up for grabs at one time. As it was, we stayed out of it for far too long...making WW2 possible in the first place.
Hitler declared war on America after Pearl Harbor because Germany already had ties with Japan from the 1936 Axis alliance.

Hitler certainly would have preferred to leave America alone until after he had conquered the UK and the Soviets... and had he accomplished that, we most likely would have lost the war. We would have been surrounded on either side by the Axis and eventually squeezed out.

[Trimac20]

Originally Posted by Chango

Of course he thought he would win... and he had a fair shot at succeeding too!

America was far more isolationist in perspective back then; although we had sympathy for the British, there were A LOT of people sympathetic to the Germans too. In fact, whether we ended up as an English speaking or German speaking country was up for grabs at one time.

Hitler declared war on America after Pearl Harbor because Germany already had ties with Japan from the 1936 Axis alliance.

Hitler certainly would have preferred to leave America alone until after he had conquered the UK and the Soviets... and had he accomplished that, we most likely would have lost the war. We would have been surrounded on either side by the Axis and eventually squeezed out.

Well I can't see the US just letting Hitler take over Europe - yes, the US was isolationist, but not to a stupid degree. They would have known that if Germany had conquered Europe for long enough and built an Empire on those vast resources, they'd be a fair match for the US.

And as history shows, the tide actually turned very early in the course of the 6 years of the War. Arguably as early as late 1941/1942. Of course by the Battle of the Bulge things the show was over, but I think logistically, Germany had a false sense of superiority from their early victories and the Soviets had an almost endless capacity/manpower to wage war. There was no way the Germans could have ever defeated both the US and Soviet Union, the two greatest military nations in the world at the time.

[villageidiot1]

Originally Posted by Trimac20

I mean he must've known the US would enter the War at some stage...or did he expect help from Japan? Or did he expect the Soviets to really ally with Nazi Germany against the Allies, which became a remote possibility after how badly he treated the Slavs.

I think by late 1941 - after the failed invasion of Russia - Hitler probably knew he was fighting a lost cause but continued because of sheer pride.

Hitler had a non-aggression pact with Stalin. Stalin was totally surprised by the Nazi invasion.

Originally Posted by Chango

Of course he thought he would win... and he had a fair shot at succeeding too!

America was far more isolationist in perspective back then; although we had sympathy for the British, there were A LOT of people sympathetic to the Germans too. In fact, whether we ended up as an English speaking or German speaking country was up for grabs at one time. As it was, we stayed out of it for far too long...making WW2 possible in the first place.
Hitler declared war on America after Pearl Harbor because Germany already had ties with Japan from the 1936 Axis alliance.

Hitler certainly would have preferred to leave America alone until after he had conquered the UK and the Soviets... and had he accomplished that, we most likely would have lost the war. We would have been surrounded on either side by the Axis and eventually squeezed out.

You are assuming that Hitler had an objective of invading the US. It would have been virtually impossible. It would have been almost an impossibility for Hitler to invade Britain.

Originally Posted by Trimac20

Well I can't see the US just letting Hitler take over Europe - yes, the US was isolationist, but not to a stupid degree. They would have known that if Germany had conquered Europe for long enough and built an Empire on those vast resources, they'd be a fair match for the US.

And as history shows, the tide actually turned very early in the course of the 6 years of the War. Arguably as early as late 1941/1942. Of course by the Battle of the Bulge things the show was over, but I think logistically, Germany had a false sense of superiority from their early victories and the Soviets had an almost endless capacity/manpower to wage war. There was no way the Germans could have ever defeated both the US and Soviet Union, the two greatest military nations in the world at the time.

Didn't Hitler take over most of Europe while the US did virtually nothing? Would the tide have turned if Hitler had not invaded the Soviet Union?

Just suppose Hitler had not launched the air war against Britain and lost a good chunk of the Luftwaffe; had not launched an invasion of the Soviet Union and lost a sizable portion of his military; and had reinforced Rommel in North Africa so that Rommell was able to take the Suez Canal. Germany had the potential to get access the Middle Eastern oil and cut off British shipping in the Mediteranean Sea. Two of these would have made it extremely difficult for the Allies to launch the Normandy invasion.

[TXRunner]

Hitler was mostly focused on gaining "lebensraum" in the East. He really had no desire to fight Great Britain or the U.S. I'm not sure if he thought he could beat the U.S., Great Britain and Russia, but he really only wanted to take on Russia.

[lucknow]

Hitler truely believed he could conquer the entire world. He really was in fact very ignorant about the countries outside of Germany. Hitler did not function or work according to facts or logic but what he thought was a spirit of destiny that spoke to him and formed his plans. In the case of the USA he thought that because of the huge number of German decended Americans that the USA would form it's own version of the NSDAP and be contented with being another member of his thousand year Reich. His early conquests were in large part made possible by the traitorous actions and attitudes of those far rightwing forces in the countries that were defeated. It was very common in the days leading up to the war for members of the "Two Hundred families" who were the economic royalists and owners in France to say, "better Hitler than Blum" who was the elected democratic socialist leader of France. Well, they got their Hitler and to late they found they were so so so wrong.

Hitler also was counting on the same economic forces in the USA to be friendly and willing tools for his plans. To be sure there were plenty of those kinds in the USA that did their utmost to keep the country from fighting the Germans. There were plenty of these native facists in England too and if it were not for two implacable foes of facism Churchill and FDR they might have allowed Hitler to do just what he planned to do.

[Trimac20]

Originally Posted by lucknow

Hitler truely believed he could conquer the entire world. He really was in fact very ignorant about the countries outside of Germany. Hitler did not function or work according to facts or logic but what he thought was a spirit of destiny that spoke to him and formed his plans. In the case of the USA he thought that because of the huge number of German decended Americans that the USA would form it's own version of the NSDAP and be contented with being another member of his thousand year Reich. His early conquests were in large part made possible by the traitorous actions and attitudes of those far rightwing forces in the countries that were defeated. It was very common in the days leading up to the war for members of the "Two Hundred families" who were the economic royalists and owners in France to say, "better Hitler than Blum" who was the elected democratic socialist leader of France. Well, they got their Hitler and to late they found they were so so so wrong.

Hitler also was counting on the same economic forces in the USA to be friendly and willing tools for his plans. To be sure there were plenty of those kinds in the USA that did their utmost to keep the country from fighting the Germans. There were plenty of these native facists in England too and if it were not for two implacable foes of facism Churchill and FDR they might have allowed Hitler to do just what he planned to do.

Yeah treachery and double-crossing was as much responsible for the Nazi's early success as was their Panzers and Luftwaffe, which of course were nothing to sneeze at. I do feel that the Nazis just got a few lucky breaks, got early off the blocks...I think they overestimated and over-extended themselves even before they started making some foolishly overambitious campaigns like Barbarossa, or even wasting energy, aircraft and pilots fighting the Air War in Britain.

[erasure]

Originally Posted by Trimac20

I mean he must've known the US would enter the War at some stage...or did he expect help from Japan? Or did he expect the Soviets to really ally with Nazi Germany against the Allies, which became a remote possibility after how badly he treated the Slavs.

I think by late 1941 - after the failed invasion of Russia - Hitler probably knew he was fighting a lost cause but continued because of sheer pride.

Why a person with messiah complex wouldn't believe in his victory?

PS. The invasion of Russia was far from over in 1941.
It wasn't over up until 1943 at least, and even then it was still a teeter-totter, kind of.

[erasure]

PS. PS.If you read something like this -

"If we speak of soil in Europe today, we can primarily have in mind only Russia and her vassal border states.
Here Fate itself seems desirous of giving us a sign. By handing Russia to Bolshevism, it robbed the Russian nation of that intelligentsia which previously brought about and guaranteed its existence as a state. For the organization of a Russian state formation was not the result of the political abilities of the Slavs in Russia, but only a wonderful example of the state-forming efficacity of the German element in an inferior race. Numerous mighty empires on earth have been created in this way. Lower nations led by Germanic organizers and overlords have more than once grown to be mighty state formations and have endured as long as the racial nucleus of the creative state race maintained itself. For centuries Russia drew nourishment from this Germanic nucleus of its upper leading strata. Today it can be regarded as almost totally exterminated and extinguished. It has been replaced by the Jew. Impossible as it is for the Russian by himself to shake off the yoke of the Jew by his own resources, it is equally impossible for the Jew to maintain the mighty empire forever. He himself is no element of organization, but a ferment of decomposition. The Persian empire in the east is ripe for collapse. And the end of Jewish rule in Russia will also be the end of Russia as a state. We have been chosen by Fate as witnesses of a catastrophe which will be the mightiest confirmation of the soundness of the folkish theory".

http://www.mondopolitico.com/library...ampf/v2c14.htm

you kinda get an idea ( on basis of Hitler's other statements including) that
A. He was thinking about uniting people of Germanic origin in Europe
and B. Creating a big Empire ( America was always a role model for him in this respect) while taking over Russian land mass and resettling there "Germanic people" to procreate and to live happily ever after.
Once his envisioned Empire would come in place, THEN he was probably considering taking on the US.
The way I see it, it were actually the Brits who messed up his plans ( they didn't went along with them and sucked America into war much earlier than Hitler probably ever guessed.)
And he ( Hitler that is) thought all that time that Britons were part of Germanic people.
Trust people after that!

[Phil306]

Had Hitler NOT invaded Russia, he would have won the war in Europe. There would have been no stopping him. That includes an invasion by the United States. We could not have won a war against Germany and Russia. Russia had the manpower and Hitler had the "tech smarts." The war would have been carried on for years and Hitler would have had nuclear weapons way before us. Remember, nuclear weapons and rocket travel, was already being conducted by Hitler's Germany. They were years ahead of the United States and our nuclear program.

Had Hitler not invaded Russia, the chances are, you and I would be speaking German now...