could the nazis won the European Theatre if they delayed/canceled the invasion of the soviet union

[aakibar]

Thats a tough, and loaded question. (hindsight is 20/20)

The point of the invasion of the soviet union was both an ideological attack on communism as well as an attack to gain resources. Hitler's war took up thousands of resources that the Nazis never had. If they had kept their non-aggression pact and added a trade clause to it then the nazis would have be set for the most part. The problem is that Hitler had this "thing" against Russians and the commies.

It would have been close to say the least if the Germans had not invaded the USSR, more of their effort would have been focused on both the navy and expanding to other locations, the Iberian peninsula sounds good to me. If the navy, specifically the u-boat had developed more the war would have been more costly for GB and the US.

But as some said earlier the Germans were screwed once the US got on site, as long as the USSR did not come to their aid the whole war would have been longer and more costly for everyone. And there would be a chance that the US and allies would have settled for a peace treaty with the Nazis' at some point instead of out right destruction.

 

[exessmirror]

Possibly, but I think they may have won the war if Valkyrie was sucessful. After all, many of the defeats Germany suffered late into the war were because of Hitler killing his best generals and making insane battlefield strategies.

if Valkyrie was succesfull the war would have stopped, one step of the plan was to peace out the allies after the coup

 

[Shio]

The German army didn't stand a chance.

 

[MelasZepheos_v1legacy]

I believe maybe. They might not have been able to invade Britain but the blockade was working a lot better than anyone wanted to admit, and if they could have kept it up Britain could well have starved to defeat (At least, according to what I learned in History they could have). If the Soviet Union had been kept on side until Britain gave in, they could then have spent decades consolidating while the Americans sat on their hands. Of course this also depends on the Americans sitting on their hands, which means that concurrent to Germany not invading the SU, Japan would have to have left America alone as well.

So if Germany had not invaded the Societ Union and japan had not attacked Pearl Harbour, I do believe that they could have at least conquered Europe.

Other mitigating factors:

As if obvious the two above points are the biggest, but also, the German army was best at short fights. The entire point of Blitzkrieg was to be in and conquered practically before the enemy could even respond to your attack. The plan is simple enough in theory, blast through the front line, reach the capital. consolidate. So potentially, and of course we'll never know, Germany wouldn't have been capable of keeping Britain down and unable to strike back for the length of time necessary to ensure surrender. (I refuse to say 'our' surrender like I was actually there)

Hitler was battynuggets. This is the real reason so much failed. When Hitler took direct control he was useless, and when he wasn't taking direct control he had deliberately set up a bureaucracy where every member of every wing of government fought themselves for control. The Nazi government could well have internally collapsed long before the war's end.

Long term resistance. It's all very well to say that they could have won the war, but would it have meant anything? Half of France was in pretty much constant rebellion, and you bet your arse half of Britain would have been too. Keeping internal rebellion attempts down, and attempting to mount an invasion of America (because eventually America might well have thought that having a tyrannical dictator in charge of Europe was a bad thing, although this is a lot more uncertain than most Americans want to believe), and repressing the urge to take over the Soviet Union even after the war? Even had they won the war, there is very little chance of all that lovely alternate history coming true and the Nazis continue to rule to the present day. They just weren't built for it, and taking over the world (OF COURSE) is very very difficult and ultimately futile.

Taking over the world doesn't mean that you're in charge of the world, it means that the people you put in place are in charge of small portions of the world and they report to you. So unless you feel like dealing with every single problem that every government deals with every minute of every day all on your own then there's little overall benefit unless you just delegate off to the leaders of the countries, in which case you're barely even ruling them. You'd just be a figurehead, which is pretty much what Hitler was by the end anyway.

 

[CaptainKoala]

When the Nazis made the alliance with Japan they thought Japan would help them with Russia. Had that been true they may have been able to conquer Europe. But Japan thought the alliance meant they could get Germany to help them with the US. They lost because they weren't on the same page.

 

[NinjazInside]

I am sorry but don't bash the Germans, i personally think that Germany in World War 2 had the best military, scientifically they had weapons that could kill an allied tank in one and armour that could survive multiple hits from allied equivalents. Even the so god praised americans without the distraction of the war with the Soviets then the Germans would have a large amount of their production geared towards keeping Europe under Nazi control. But yes an invasion of Britain was very unlikely to accomplish anything, for one the British Navy was much larger then the German one. Two Britain was geared towards a mainly defensive war in the end. And three why are the Americans so brilliant, they were the Economic power of the time. But militarily speaking they flopped against Germany and Japan could've beat them in the Pacific with the right tactics. In all Hindsight is a ***** and Germany could've.

 

[AnAngryMoose]

Probably not because Hitler's allies were dead weight for the most part. Mussolini got involved too early when his army wasn't up to scratch and Germany had to bail out the Italians on multiple occassions, particularly having to bust Mussolini out of prison. The only reason they successfully invaded Abyssinia was because they natives weren't exactly the most technologically advanced. Also, the Japanese made a blunder with Pearl Harbour and got America much more heavily involved in the war, not to mention the Tripartide Pact which obliged the Axis forces to help one another economically and militarily. Unfortunately for Germany, it was the strongest and it ended up having to support the other two countries. Not to mention the fact that Hitler ceased the bombing campaign on strategic targets and decided to bomb civilian areas in the UK.

Hitler may have stood a chance if:

1)Pear Harbour didn't happen. This just got America fully involved and doomed Hitler's campaign.

2)He kept his word on the 10-year non-aggression pact. Not only would it have allowed him to focus solely on the western theatre, but Germany needed the trans-Siberian railroad to transport weapons, scientists etc to Japan. After Operation Barbarossa the Kriegsmarine was forced to use U-boats to transport goods to Japan which diminished Hitler's naval power. That would have been a big problem in conquering Britain due to the British Navy.

3)If Hitler kept bombing radar installations and RAF bases rather than civilian locations.

 

[SilentCom]

If instead of invading Russia the Nazi's decided to consolidate their gains they may have managed a draw. However even if the war was over the Nazi's wouldn't have been in a very good position: they had no real allies, various local resistance movements were gaining strength and popularity, and I suspect the entire power structure would have rapidly collapsed in on itself.

The Nazi's gained power by improving the economy and working up a strong sense of national pride - it would have been hard to keep the Go Aryans! fever pitch after halting the war so far from the supposed goal of uniting Europe, and without the war I suspect their economy would have slumped.

Not to be bashing on America, but that theory sounds a lot like the situation leading to America's rise in power and problems with our economy. America's economy and what not grew after WWII with national pride and victory, but keeping up the national pride failed. Our economy is having problems now too. I am aware its not exactly the same situation as the Nazis, but I just wanted to point out some similarities.

OT: I'm not sure if the Nazis would have won the European theatre, but attacking their Soviet ally was a stupid mistake that led to their (expedited) downfall. If the Nazis were to actually work together with the Soviets, and perhaps the Japanese, then Europe would have been in a lot more trouble. As far as I can tell, even though the Nazis and Soviets were essentially allies, they didn't exactly fight alongside each other in battle unlike the Allied forces.

 

[Smooth Operator]

Hmm, well it's all guessing at this point, but here is my view:
- Russia and Germany were on a fragile buddy status(Russia wanted a piece of the action but not under someone else), they might have ended up allied if Hitler played it cool
- now if they didn't hit Russia they would save alot of their army to conquer the remaining Europe
- UK might not be doable, but while not overextending their army defending the rest of the new land would be far easier
- and if Russia helped out they would have Asia in their pocket easily
- then most of the world on their end I highly doubt any other country would want to get pulled into the war

But the cold war afterwards would probably not be quite so cold, with 3 or 4 superpowers on the rise things would get messy, wouldn't have the overpopulation problems tho

 

[SuperNova221]

Britain was actually pretty close to crumbling and reaching the last of their resources, if my memory serves me correctly. So, assuming my memory serves me correctly on that fact, they could have probably taken Europe.

 

[RadiusXd]

I am sorry but don't bash the Germans, i personally think that Germany in World War 2 had the best military, scientifically they had weapons that could kill an allied tank in one and armour that could survive multiple hits from allied equivalents. Even the so god praised americans without the distraction of the war with the Soviets then the Germans would have a large amount of their production geared towards keeping Europe under Nazi control. But yes an invasion of Britain was very unlikely to accomplish anything, for one the British Navy was much larger then the German one. Two Britain was geared towards a mainly defensive war in the end. And three why are the Americans so brilliant, they were the Economic power of the time. But militarily speaking they flopped against Germany and Japan could've beat them in the Pacific with the right tactics. In all Hindsight is a ***** and Germany could've.

the tanks that cost an arm and a leg to build, and which were outmanoeuvred by the Russians mass produced tanks?

 

[Karadalis]

Stalin had no intention to invade germany or get involved in the war at all "at that time". This clearly shows with the forces they had stationed on the border to germany that where simply wiped aside by the invading german forces. The soviet union simply wasnt prepared for a war, technology wise and military wise.

Their early tanks where jokes, they didnt even had enough weapons to equip all their soldiers (some of them where even sent to the front lines without guns)and most importantly their units at the german borders where severly undermanned.

So yeah.. there was no threat from the soviet union at the time of germans attack, hitler simply attacked because he hated communism and stalin (hence the disaster at stalingrad), and his megalomaniac plans for germany.

Also people allready pointed out that the nazis lost because hitler thought of himselfe as the next comming of napoleon... the sad (or fortunate) truth is that Hitler had no idea what the hell he was actually doing. Several Generals kept warning him that he should not neglect the war on the oceans and that the war would be decided there, and not on land against an enemy that didnt even wanted to attack in the first place.

Also about the USA nuking germany.. i dont think this decision would have come so easaly.. in japan it only effected japan. But if you drop a nuke on germany several other countrys would have been effected by radiation and coleteral damage. Its one thing if you drop a nuke on an isolated enemy that is sitting on an island or dropping it in europe with its dozen or so countrys sittin side by side. Also nuking germany could have been seen as a thread for the soviet union and instead of fighting against germany they might have joined sides with it, who knows?

Also without the soviet front the landing in the normandy would never have been possible. Frankly the operation was very close to turn into a disaster and the losses during the landing where horrible, so if hitler had more men and more heavy firepower at that front it would have turned into a massacre.

World war 2 was lost for the germans because of a single mans foolish ambitions and his lack of basic military strategy understanding. Germany also spent enourmous resources on the holocaust, wich from a logistic standpoint was a monster in its own right and took up alot of capacitys and resources that could have been spend better in the overall war effort.

So yeah... had hitler actually let his generals do their thing the outturn of WW2 would have been massivly different. Would they have won? No i dont think so.. no nation can take on the entire world.

Would they have won europe? Yes i think they could have forced the allies to a draw and keep their presence in europe upright.. atleast for aslong as the regime could hold itselfe in the saddle. But thats a different beast.

 

[Dick Johnson]

I think a better hypothetical future question would be what if Hitler had never become chancellor

 

[standokan]

Either Germany or Russia would've won, both pretty shitty outcomes if you ask me.

Maybe England could have a hand in it but Russia still would've had a much bigger piece of land which could've made the Cold war end horribly.

 

[OliverTwist72]

Didn't learn from Napolean eh? Russia had no interest in attacking Germany before Germany invaded, in fact they were allies of a sort. They had a non-aggression pact, and Stalin also signed a "no-contact" agreement with Hitler to not communicate with Britain. Stalin did not actually believe Germany would try to invade Russia, he was pre-occupied with trying to invade Finland (look up The Winter War).

Once the US was drawn into the war by Japan, it was pretty much game over. I think the war would have turned out very differently if the US had sat on its hands.

Also, as other people have pointed out. Hitler was a very bad strategist. He continually made bad decisions which affected the outcome of the war. I believe the German's would have been able to hold out longer if they did not invade Russia, but I do not think they would have ultimately won. The US had too much economic and military power for the Germans to outlast.

 

[Spygon]

Well it is possible if they had more men to throw at the British empire they might have succeeded in invading the British isles but it would have cost them alot to do it.One of the big reasons why they called off the invasion after the battle of Britian.This would also have meant that the allies would not have had a stageing ground in Europe to combat the nazis.

So possibly that might have lost them the European theater but it would have put even more pressure on the British Empire to stop the Nazi invasion.So all i can really say is attacking the Soviet Union was one of hitlers major mistakes and it was mainly down to overconfidence

 

[Dick Johnson]

Once the US was drawn into the war by Japan, it was pretty much game over. I think the war would have turned out very differently if the US had sat on its hands.

To be fair, the US was already involved long before Pearl Harbor.

The attacks on Pearl Harbor are claimed by many historians to be retalitory attacks for US oil embargos against Japan.

How well can any nation fight a war cut off from oil? An island nation no less? It was already game over for Japan. They just fought one hell of a losing battle.