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Semantics. Japan's initiation of war against America meant the other axis powers would be getting involved. No Japanese attack = no Germany involvement.
Maybe. Germany and Japan had a mutual defense treaty which Japan chose not to follow after Barbarossa commenced, citing the non-aggression treaty they had with the USSR.
Another excellent post! All Americans in the summer of 1945 believed that an invasion of Japan was inevitable, and they dreaded it because they knew how it would be. My late father always felt somewhat guilty about his WW II experience because by of a quirk of fate, he spent the war on Hawaii chauffeuring officers while most of his friends in his original unit island hopped to their deaths in places like Iwo Jima and Okinawa. Invading Japan itself would have made those killing fields seem "easy".
He said that America ended it on their terms which is wrong since they didn't achieve their main aim in the Pacific War (namely keeping China in its orbit). Thankfully, China screwed America over in 1949 (which IMO was long overdue after the way America screwed them over during the early 20th century) and adopted its own foreign policy free of foreign influence. Personally, I think the best outcome about Pacific War was that China finally gained its own autonomy that it did not have for quite a while even if it was from an anti-American government that went to war with America in 1950. America may have gotten rid of Imperial Japan but Imperial Japan was replaced by Communist China although I don't think China is as bad as Japan even though some people compare China's treatment of Tibet and Xinjiang to Japan's treatment of Korea and Taiwan which IMO is misguided.
Okay I see your argument but a lot stems on the assumption the USA comes to the defense of USSR. USA was perfectly fine sitting on the sidelines and profiting off the War. If Pearl Harbor doesn't happen, the USA might never get involved. Japan's stupidity forced the Americans hand.
I think it's easy in hindsight to say, well the Americans were always against the Nazis....they weren't. Most of Europe was either neutral or on their side. It wasn't until defeat was imminent that nations started to jump the pile. I don't see the USA sticking it's neck out against Germany & Japan if USSR is defeated and England is on it's knees.
The defence of the USSR by the USA was not an issue to Japan, as the USSR was to be clearly defeated in their minds. Japan did force the American's hand, however the USSR was to be defeated and Japan and Germany in a very strong alliance with the USA's Pacific fleet wiped out and much US and UK Far East territory occupied by Japan.
One must think about how Japan had been "reading" US public opinion at the time. Isolationism had been huge here.
Roosevelt was clearly preparing the USA for war. They knew it was coming and they wanted to be prepared. To keep the war going the USSA upped production and supplied the UK as well.
Semantics. Japan's initiation of war against America meant the other axis powers would be getting involved. No Japanese attack = no Germany involvement.
That's 20-20 hindsight again. Since Japan hadn't joined in attacking the Soviet Union, Germany had "justification" for not getting involved in a US-Japanese war. It's not like any of the Axis regimes were in any way interested in anything except their own self-interest.
Roosevelt wanted to go to war against Germany well before December, 1941, but he couldn't get Congress (and the American people) to go to war for Europe, which is why the fighting in the North Atlantic was kept under cover. Conventional wisdom at the time said that fighting a two front war would be a disaster, and FDR (and almost everybody else in the US government and military) subscribed to that belief, so it doesn't seem likely that the US would have gone to war with Germany while engaged in a war against Japan without some blatant provocation on Germany's part.
IMO, Hitler thought he was on the verge of victory in Europe and thought that the Japanese would now easily defeat the US, so he wanted to join the war against the US so he could share in the spoils.
He said that America ended it on their terms which is wrong since they didn't achieve their main aim in the Pacific War (namely keeping China in its orbit). Thankfully, China screwed America over in 1949 (which IMO was long overdue after the way America screwed them over during the early 20th century) and adopted its own foreign policy free of foreign influence. Personally, I think the best outcome about Pacific War was that China finally gained its own autonomy that it did not have for quite a while even if it was from an anti-American government that went to war with America in 1950. America may have gotten rid of Imperial Japan but Imperial Japan was replaced by Communist China although I don't think China is as bad as Japan even though some people compare China's treatment of Tibet and Xinjiang to Japan's treatment of Korea and Taiwan which IMO is misguided.
The main aim in the Pacific War was always first and foremost defeating Japan.
Semantics. Japan's initiation of war against America meant the other axis powers would be getting involved. No Japanese attack = no Germany involvement.
Germany did not have to declare war on the USA as Japan was not attacked. If the USA attacked first Germany automatically is in it with Japan.
it doesn't seem likely that the US would have gone to war with Germany while engaged in a war against Japan without some blatant provocation on Germany's part.
Very true. Germany declared war on the USA in order to freely attack US shipping and side with Japan. After all the Germans were continually requesting Japan attack the UK, so joining in when Japan did attack was only sensible.
Quote:
IMO, Hitler thought he was on the verge of victory in Europe and thought that the Japanese would now easily defeat the US, so he wanted to join the war against the US so he could share in the spoils.
Some truth in that. The Japanese thought Hitler was on the verge of victory in the USSR that is why they attacked the UK & USA. The last thing they wanted was to fight a war on massive front with limited resources alone, against the UK & USA - and that is what happened because of Japanese misjudgement.
Okay I see your argument but a lot stems on the assumption the USA comes to the defense of USSR. USA was perfectly fine sitting on the sidelines and profiting off the War. If Pearl Harbor doesn't happen, the USA might never get involved. Japan's stupidity forced the Americans hand.
I think it's easy in hindsight to say, well the Americans were always against the Nazis....they weren't. Most of Europe was either neutral or on their side. It wasn't until defeat was imminent that nations started to jump the pile. I don't see the USA sticking it's neck out against Germany & Japan if USSR is defeated and England is on it's knees.
This post is full of revisionist views that are simply not supported by historical fact. The Roosevelt administration was not immediately anti-Nazi when the Nazis came to power in 1933 but became so by 1935. In 1938, the US recalled its ambassador from Germany. That some individual Americans supported or admired the Nazis doesn't change the reality that most Americans opposed Nazism from about the mid-1930s.
As for your statement about European nations supporting the Nazis, that's a very disingenuous statement because these European countries were all controlled by Germany by 1942, having been invaded/annexed by Germany or Italy:
Albania
Austria
Belgium
Bulgaria
Czechoslovakia
Denmark
Estonia
Finland
France
Greece
Latvia
Lithuania
Luxemburg
The Netherlands
Norway
Poland
Romania
Yugoslavia
In some of these countries, the Nazis installed puppet regimes and in others they didn't bother, but none of the countries on the list above had any real choice in "supporting" the Nazis or not after 1938.
The only two non-puppet pro-Nazi regimes in Europe in 1942 were Italy and Spain, and Spain maintained its neutrality throughout the war with Italy was a member of the Axis. The list of neutral European nations:
Ireland
Portugal
Spain
Sweden
Switzerland
So, in actuality, the Roosevelt Administration and most Americans never did like the Nazis much, and only 2 European nations other than Germany whole-heartedly supported the Nazis. A total of 4 European nations with non-Fascist governments stayed neutral throughout World War II. With the exception of Britain and the USSR, the other European countries "supported" the Nazis because they had been annexed or invaded/defeated by Germany or Italy.
Germany did not have to declare war on the USA as Japan was not attacked. If the USA attacked first Germany automatically is in it with Japan.
This is correct. Since Japan was the aggressor, Germany and Italy were not obligated* to support Japan (if it had been the USA that attacked Japan then Germany and Italy were obligated).
However, even if Hitler was obligated to support Japan, there was no guarantee that he would since Hitler was not known for keeping his word on treaties and promises. Especially since the Germans were at war with the Soviet Union and the Japanese refused to help, why should the Germans help the Japanese fight the Americans?
So basically it was Hitler's decision to declare war on the USA and possibly one of his biggest mistakes.
* German Foreign Minister Ribbentrop to Hitler
"The text of the Tripartite Pact bound us to assist Japan only in case of an attack on Japan herself. I went to see the Fuehrer, explained the legal aspect of the situation and told him that, although we welcomed a new ally against England, it meant we had a new opponent to deal with as well . . . if we declared war on the United States".
from Page 894 of the Rise and Fall of the Third Reich
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All Americans in the summer of 1945 believed that an invasion of Japan was inevitable, and they dreaded it because they knew how it would be. My late father always felt somewhat guilty about his WW II experience because by of a quirk of fate, he spent the war on Hawaii chauffeuring officers while most of his friends in his original unit island hopped to their deaths in places like Iwo Jima and Okinawa. Invading Japan itself would have made those killing fields seem "easy".
