What would have happened if.....

[~Mobius~]

Germany had won the war and Hitler lived?
I mean if they eventually defeated England and USA - do you think they would've ruled the entire world?

 

[L_Plates]

Originally posted by ~Mobius~
Germany had won the war and Hitler lived?
I mean if they eventually defeated England and USA - do you think they would've ruled the entire world?

I dread to think

 

[Laroma]

Horrible question, I don't even want to think up an answer to that.

 

[Ash!]

Quite possibly. One thing History does tell us is that all great empires come to an end, usually imploding very quickly

 

[L_Plates]

IE : ROME !

 

[SilverHood]

Could have sworn there was a book, and even a Film made about this topic.

Needless to say, we'd all be speaking Deutche, walking like John Cleese, each with our own little not so spiffing moustache and saying "Heil!" to every soldier groping our gf's / wives / sisters.

The germans are great for efficiency... or they used to be anyway... they might have made it work.

Thank god, we'll never know

 

[Scouse]

Originally posted by ~Mobius~
Germany had won the war and Hitler lived?
I mean if they eventually defeated England and USA - do you think they would've ruled the entire world?

What? Germans? Beat England????? Don't make me laugh

 

[evilmonkeh]

the queen would be german!
oh but she allready is. hmm

 

[Cyfr]

The Americans wouldn't have been the first nation on the moon The Germans would have beet them to it (Something about the Americans capturing German Scientists ect, so Germans put America into space)

 

[Mr^B]

"Making History" - Stephen Fry.

 

[doh_boy]

Isn't there a book called 'Fatherland' which was made into a film with Rutger Hauer in it?

YES

Also there was a BBC TV-Movie with that as a premise iirc.

/edit written by Robert Harris of Enigma fame.

 

[Stazbumpa]

Nazi's winning WW2; not a nice thought at all. I doubt they could've held onto so much territory for too long, but even so, the idea of life under their collective heels is something that makes me feel unwell.

/addition for those who may be interested;
I hear a theory that England was safe from invasion by Germany after the Battle of Britain because Hitler invaded Russia and we had introduced rationing on our population from the outset of hostilities, whereas the Nazi's didn't. ie: Hitler started the war with Russia (which he was never really going to win), spent lots of effort and resources on it and we could've just sat there and starved the buggers out of France.
So the next time some jumped up Yank announces that "we saved you guys in WW2", you have some additional ammo with which to tell them to fuck off

 

[Munkey-]

Originally posted by doh_boy
Isn't there a book called 'Fatherland' which was made into a film with Rutger Hauer in it?

YES

Also there was a BBC TV-Movie with that as a premise iirc.

/edit written by Robert Harris of Enigma fame.

From what i remember of the book, he doesnt actualyl conquer the world. Hitler just declares a truce.

 

[xane]

Originally posted by Stazbumpa
I hear a theory that England was safe from invasion by Germany after the Battle of Britain because Hitler invaded Russia ...

This represents the two essential fronts that Germany failed to consolidate.

Defeat at the Battle of Britain was due to Germany's failure to establish air superiority in Europe, from that point onwards Germany started losing the air war and consequently gave allied bombers the upper hand to attack at will. Germany's only hope in the air was to develop superior technology, but that was hampered by lack of resources (see below) and because the allies had caught up with them.

An assault on Russia was forced on Germany because of their defeat in Africa, which failed to secure vital oil supplies from the Middle East. Germany needed oil and other resources and the only major source was Russia, or perhaps through Russia and back into the Middle East.

The war was already effectively lost by this time, around the end of 1942, the best Germany could have achieved was a stalemate, the Americans came along just to really shorten the war, but it has to be said that the war would have been a lot longer and a lot more bloody without them involved.

 

[Wij]

iirc the Germans came very close to capturing Moscow. If they'd gone that extra mile or two maybe Russia would have surrendered. That would have evened things up considerably.

Anyway. Nobody really knows do they...

 

[pcg79]

God probably does

 

[DaGaffer]

Originally posted by Wij
iirc the Germans came very close to capturing Moscow. If they'd gone that extra mile or two maybe Russia would have surrendered. That would have evened things up considerably.

Anyway. Nobody really knows do they...

Wouldn't have mattered, (other than symbolically), the Russians had already moved industrial production east of the Urals by then.

LOADS of 'What if the Germans had won?' stories out there; the best (IMHO) is The Man in The High Castle by Philip K. Dick, but 'Two Dooms' by C.M. Kornbluth is pretty good too. Check this site: www.uchronia.net, if you like that kind of thing.

 

[Wij]

I know the Russians COULD have fought on without Moscow but maybe they wouldn't have been arsed to anymore.

Actually that's probably never gonna happens what with slavs and teutons hating each other so much but who knows.

 

[DaGaffer]

Originally posted by Wij
I know the Russians COULD have fought on without Moscow but maybe they wouldn't have been arsed to anymore.

Actually that's probably never gonna happens what with slavs and teutons hating each other so much but who knows.

LOL! I think the choice between getting shot by the NKVD on the one hand or rounded up by the SS on the other meant that 'not being arsed' probably wasn't an option! The war would have gone on a lot longer though, the Germans could have moved south into the Caucusus a lot earlier so the outcome of Stalingrad could have been different, freeing up more Germans to fight for longer. In the end though, the Allies would have won by sheer weight of numbers - they were producing more materiel in a day than the Germans could produce in a month by the middle of 1944, and no matter how good your 'wonder weapons' are, those odds take some beating.

There's an argument to suggest that more time would have allowed the Nazis to develop their own A-bomb, but apparently they were a lot further behind the Americans than everyone thought, so even this is doubtful.

 

[Deadmanwalking]

The german a-bomb project was so very close to being opeartional as it were, but due to little known British commandos/european resistance they were put back on many many occasions.

The heavy water plant in Vemork is one example.

EDIT: Im sorry i must be wrong as no yanks were mentioned.
What really happened was one single american soldier after being shot down infiltrated every a-bomb related plant and blew them all up using a matchbox and a small dog

This story: coming to a cinema near you

 

[evilmonkeh]

talking of the telemark heavy water plant, did anyone see a 3 part ray meers program about it a few weeks ago?

 

[CAC]

as i remember The Philidelphia Experement 2 was sort of based around germany winning the second world war.

However its obviosly based on an american point of view

 

[Cdr]

Originally posted by evilmonkeh
talking of the telemark heavy water plant, did anyone see a 3 part ray meers program about it a few weeks ago?

Yus, it was extremely interesting.

 

[mr.Blacky]

Originally posted by DaGaffer
Wouldn't have mattered, (other than symbolically), the Russians had already moved industrial production east of the Urals by then.

Tbh it would have mattered, yes the Russians most likely would have fought on but Moscow was (and is) the single most important city for communication, control and (hmmm forgot the 3e c) without Moscow the Russian defence would have no real control thereby rendering it less effective giving the Axis a real advantage over the Russians, with as most likely result a defeat of the USSR. The only counter point is that Hitler was already trying to micro organise the Axis forces and that is always bad, just look at the US forces in Vietnam.

 

[Flamin_Squirrel]

Originally posted by xane
This represents the two essential fronts that Germany failed to consolidate.

Defeat at the Battle of Britain was due to Germany's failure to establish air superiority in Europe, from that point onwards Germany started losing the air war and consequently gave allied bombers the upper hand to attack at will. Germany's only hope in the air was to develop superior technology, but that was hampered by lack of resources (see below) and because the allies had caught up with them.

An assault on Russia was forced on Germany because of their defeat in Africa, which failed to secure vital oil supplies from the Middle East. Germany needed oil and other resources and the only major source was Russia, or perhaps through Russia and back into the Middle East.

The war was already effectively lost by this time, around the end of 1942, the best Germany could have achieved was a stalemate, the Americans came along just to really shorten the war, but it has to be said that the war would have been a lot longer and a lot more bloody without them involved.

Im not 100% but i belive that german productivity was greater in 1945 than it was in 1941.

Lucky for us it was inefectual because they sqanderd their industrial resources developing many varients of machine instead of concentrating on a proven design. Surprising, because by using better tactics they beat the hell out of the french in '39 with inferior tanks.

As for the air battle, their aircraft were more than a match all though the war, and they had enough of them. However, all their exprienced pilots were dead by '45... ironicaly most shot down by allied bombers, who went actualy doing much damage to german manufacture in the first place. If they'd just used AA against bombers and reserved fighters for attacking other fighters they might well have faired better.

Of course we still had a vast navy at the time. Gaining air superiority is one thing, invading is quite another.

 

[urz]

I think one thing that observers of WWII fail to appreciate is the depth of hate between the Germans and the Russians. Surrender was never an option after 1942 for any of the Russian people, and surrender never occured to Hitler.

Hitler always had a grudging respect for the British and hoped that once he had conquered Russia, a peace would be struck with the UK. So when the BOB wasn't going his way, he gave up, switched recources away in preperation for Barbarossa. The destruction of the Slav peoples was as much a part of the agenda as the destruction of the Jews.

At the end of the day the Germans lost the war because they ran out of resource when the Russians first managed a decent strike back at Stalingrad. With the momentum with the Russians for the first time, he needed men and fuel to stop the Russian advance which Germany no longer had.

Had Hitler followed his generals advice at Stalingrad and allowed an organised retreat, they may have been able to hold the Russian offensive. As it was tens of thousands of German soldiers were killed and captured when the Russians eschewed a direct attack on Stalingrad in favour of attacking the weaker wings of the German line.

The was not the last time Hitler over-ruled his Generals to such effect. Whilst Hitler and Stalin were similar in many ways, Stalin always let his generals do the fighting, another reason for Hitlers ultimate downfall, as he over-ruled his time and time again.

The Russians lost 25m people in WWII - 16½m of which were civilian. The UK lost 388,000 of which 62,000 were civilians. In total 61m people died in WWII.

I don't think the Germans would ever have won the war. The Russians were hit hard, as there economy was weak and not on a war footing, but once Stalin had got that changed, and with the Lend-lease supplies from the US, the vastly superior resources and man-power were always going to tell over the Wehrmacht, it was was always going to be a fight to the death.

 

[DaGaffer]

Only way Germany could have won the war is if the US hadn't declared war on Germany in December 1941 - this was actually quite possible, large parts of Congress wanted to deal with Japan but still avoid war in Europe. If the Americans had declared war on Japan only, lend-lease would have been choked (if not stopped) and Britain would have struggled in the Battle of The Atlantic as well. Although its fashionable on this board to belittle America's contribution to WWII, the fact is they were the engine room of the allied war effort.

 

[Deadmanwalking]

The engine room maybe, but that does not take away from the quite amazing things that a very small number of people managed to do. The battle of britian is the most obvious, with only a tiny number of pilots/planes compared to say the americans in the pacific. They as has been said throughout history saved us all.

"Commandos" be that the SAS or the Royal Marines, 90% of their victories we will never hear of but i have no doubt in my mind that without them the war would have been very very different outcome.

 

[Sawtooth]

Like everything these days there would have been a top 100 disidents and 100 meat hooks waiting for them.

 

[Flamin_Squirrel]

Supply lines were more of a problem for the Nazis in Ruassia than an actual lack of produce. The vast number of German fatalities were on the eastern front and the weather was a big factor in that.

Urban conflict is notoriusly difficult (the effectivness of equipment like tanks is almost zero) and in the war of attrician that ensued at Stalingrad, the Russians could cope better than the exhausted, freezing and outnumberd Germans. Although it was indeed a turning point, I would say its wasnt so much the Russians winning the battle than the Germans losing it. If they'd stuck to their blitzkrieg tactics that worked so succesfully and just gone round, maybe they'd have done it.