Ways Germany could have won WWII

[Andrew1999]

Originally posted by jimmytrick
Edan makes a good point. Hitler's stopping before the war mushrooms wouldn't necessarilly be a victory in a world war.

But really the war with the West was thrust upon Hitler. He did not want it. Hitler's goal was always conquering the Soviet Union.

Maybe Hitler could have won if he had circled and isolated Stalingrad and Moscow rather than attack them directly?

Hitler didn't want war with Britain. France was another matter. Every Nazi in Europe had Versailles burned into his brain. Remember the scene with the railcar outside Paris? Hitler would have gone after France (with Benelux thrown in) at some point in his career. I don't know if Britain would stand by and let that happen.

[korn469]

*somehow manage to crush the british troops at dunkirk and prevent them from escaping
*convince the Japanese to attack the Soviet Union in late 1941 instead of the USA
*speed deployment of jet fighters

if Germany could have knocked the SU out of the war and managed to secure air superiority then who knows how the war would have finally turned out

[Kontiki]

Originally posted by Edan

Germany succeeds in preventing troops from retreating at Dunkirk, thereby demoralizing the Allies?

I think if Germany had managed a greater victory at Dunkirk, the Allies wouldn't have sat there and taken it.

Germany doesn't attack Russia, and concentrates on the Western Front instead?

There was nothing left to concentrate on, and, as mentioned, the SU was always one of the goals.

[Garth Vader]

There was nothing left to concentrate on, and, as mentioned, the SU was always one of the goals

Basically in 39 they should have decided how they wanted to deal with the UK.

With almost a year to prepart transports and landing doctrine I think Sealion could have been successful in July/Aug 40. But this isn't a decision they should have put off until June 40.

If they didn't want to invade UK, a complete Med campaign should have been waged. Including better support of the Italian navy, taking Malta, etc. Once again this is something that should have been prepared, and been ready to launch right after the fall of France.

If you believe war with the SU was inevitable, they could have possibly won if they had focused on Moscow, and actually treated the locals better than Stalin did, which wouldn't have been that hard.

[Gangerolf]

I read an interesting article by John Keegan in the book What if? He speculates that if Hitler pressed south through Turkey into the Levant and onto the ME oil supplies in 1941 rather than launching Barbarossa, he may have won the war. Germany would then have had all the oil it needed, been able to defeat British forces in North Africa with a pincer movement, and been well positioned to attack the Soviet Union from the south as well as the west. This movement into SU would have taken their oil supplies, greatly hurting their ablilty to defend/counterattack. Further, Turkey (which was neutral) and French Syria were very lightly defended and shouldn't have presented much of a problem for German forces.

The british (and soviets) would probably send troops to the ME if they realized which way the germans were headed.

and it wouldn't be easy to attack up through the Caucasus mountains.

[Lord Merciless]

Hitler had to attack USSR. That was his whole "Lebensraum" philosophy.

Prior to 1942, he had several chances to turn things even more to his favor:
- Prevent the retreat of Allies from Dunkirk.
- Destroy RAF before start bombing British cities. Controlling the sky would make Operation Sealion a viable option.
- Setting a less ambitious goal when invading USSR. It should be obvious that if Moscow and Kiev fell, Leningrad could not hold out by itself.
- Then after invading USSR, have at least some patience about exterminating the "Untermenschen". People of the USSR, especially Ukrainians, initially welcomed Germans. He should at least wait until Moscow, Leningrad, and Kiev had fallen, and having Stalin's head on a pike. By pushing off the genocide, he would not only have gained potential allies, but would also have spared the logistical nightmare of transporting millions to concentration camps and pesky guerilla attacks.

If Hitler had done any of the above 4 things right, the outcome of the war could be totally different.

[Kontiki]

I wonder how big a difference preventing the evacuation of Dunkirk would have made. Yeah, it would have been demoralizing, but it's not like the allies took any equipment with them and it's not like they used those troops right away in offensive operations.

[GePap]

THe Fall of Dunkirk, with the Allied armies in it would have been a great disaster for Britian. After all, such a blow would have meant the core of its army lost, and presure to rush a new army unto the field to portect England itself.

I agree that War between HItler and the USSR was inevitable, as that was the whole point of the war in the first place. Crucial to this would have been getting England to sign out of the war, as Hitler wished. So I would agree with the previous comments about How Htiler could have pushed Britain out of the war. Without bases in Britain the eventual American war against HItler would have been more difficult. I think that England would not have stayed out indefinitelly anyway, but had it signed some sort of peace with Hitler, and had Hitler and his general been able to have Birtian of their backs form 1940-1942 or 43, and have the ability to buy oil on the world market for that time, their offensives against the USSR would have gone better off. I also agree the Germans were far too ambitious in their initial push into the USSR and the wasted good feelings towards them on the western borderlands of the USSR. BUt eventually they would have faced torubles, as they always planned to starve 40-50 million people anyway.

[Datajack Franit]

Hitler had to burn up Paris to the ground and then concentrate on invading England

[Dr Strangelove]

They could have thrown down their guns and run toward the allied lines singing "99 Luft-balloons" at the tops of their lungs.

[Anodyne]

If Hitler hadn't treated the people of occupied Ukraine, Belarus and Poland like total shit, he would've had 50+ million (not sure of the population at that time) more allies against the SU...

[Jaguar]

Assuming that the diplomacy would work out the same way...

Set up artillery and a lot of machine guns on the eastern front, let Russia hurl itself inneffectively against the line, and concentrate on getting air and naval superiority in the channel. (Thats what I do in all the WWII games.) If they took down England, they could just blockade Leningrad and build up more airforce.

The production power would still not rival that of the US, but American carrier-based aircraft wouldn't be able to take on Germany's land-based aircraft. America's only strong ally would be Russia, but with a blockade at Leningrad, Russia would be inaccessible. Start bombing Russia, ruin its production. Invade Russia little by little. Make sure they can supply their army well. After that there are plenty of options.

[St Leo]

0) Wait until Italy invades Albania and ally with Britain in its defense.

[Urban Ranger]

Originally posted by korn469
*convince the Japanese to attack the Soviet Union in late 1941 instead of the USA

The IJA did try to attack the Soviet forces. They got the snot kicked out of them.

[Urban Ranger]

Originally posted by Jaguar Warrior
Set up artillery and a lot of machine guns on the eastern front, let Russia hurl itself inneffectively against the line

There are things called bombers and tanks. Bombers take out the arti, tanks overrun machine guns.

Easy.