Posted on 06/04/2012 7:00:24 PM PDT by InvisibleChurch
I have 2 questions regarding WW2. 1: Had Hitler been assassinated years earlier, would the war have lasted longer because better military minds might have held more sway or would the leaders have decided to cut their losses and surrendered? 2: Would the holocaust come to an end or would it have continued?
“....if Moscow was taken....”
One of my rules of life: Don’t invade Russian, just don’t.
If wishes were horses....beggers would ride.
What would have happened if Japan had attacked the Soviet Union instead of the United States?
The only thing standing in the way of the Germans taking Moscow in December 1941 was Zhukov's Siberian troops.
Interesting. I did not know that Hitler tied Russia to Britain in any tangible way. I have not read a lot of secondary material about the war but I consider myself more than modestly informed as to the overall history. I would have never thought what you state.
The Germans would have sued for peace and less Jews would have died.
“Britain was at least neutralized to the point where they were no threat to take on Germany, until the US entered the war.”
Agreed.
“So it made sense for Hitler to turn attention to Russia, before Stalin could complete his buildup, which was slated to be around 43-44. That’s why Stalin was so hesitant to do anything that might provoke Hitler, he was trying to buy as much time as he could.”
To me, Russia was a giant egotistical overreach and questionable endeavor from the very beginning. True, Hitler could not claim that he had conquered the world without a victory over Russia. But IMHO, had Germany never touched Russia, Germany could have conquered everything else with the [possible] exception of the US. Russia was a backwards nation, primarily agrarian. Hitler could have just monitored Russia and delayed attacking until he perceived....something properly judged as a peril. Suppose Germany honored the Ribbentrop pact, divided up Poland and let Russia have some minor countries for the asking. There is no question that the two of them hated each others guts, there is no question that Hitler was desirous of obtaining the Romanian oilfields and that could be a point of serious contention between the two countries, but what I am saying is that someone as smart and cunning yet not as conquest-obsessed as Hitler could very well have avoided war with Russia. The 1000+ mile supply lines were an elementary issue that should have been a point of concern, but Hitler had rolled over everything else, so in overreach fashion, he probably figured why not? Attacking Russia was a strategic blunder that’s easy to call in hindsight, but I don’t think it was all that unpredictable. Had Hitler just paused and consolidated for a few years into 1943 with no Russian invasion, IMO Germany might not have been defeatable in Europe.
If Hitler didn’t attack Stalin, Stalin would have inevitably attacked Hitler. Granted Stalin was counting on Britain, France and Germany duking in out in the West in a war of attrition....with the Soviets swooping in and taking out the weakened armies.
You sound like you’ve studied background material on this a lot more than I have, but I can’t help thinking and thus opining that if Germany had essentially left Russia alone, played nice, and just consolidated into 1943, tossing Russia a few small countries as bones, Russia would not have gotten onto war footing, at least to the extent that they did once under attack in Barbarossa. Imagine Germany 1943 with no Russia invasion. Two years of consolidation and industrial buildup. Invincible. Stalin would attack such a juggernaut? Now Russia has the 1000 mile supply line?
I agree they hated each other. But I have never regarded Stalin as being all that eager to militarily attack Germany.
The German Army was involved in several attempts on his life and the British had operations in planning but all the attempts were thwarted by seemingly miraculous happenstances. Eventually the British and Stalin independently concluded it was better to leave him as he was since he was significantly destroying the Germans’ chances.
Had he not been around to idiotically declare war on the US it is possible the war in the West could have been stopped since Britain could not have mounted a D-Day on its own and the Nazis could have mauled the Soviets even more.
It is like asking “what would have happened had Stonewall Jackson not been shot by his own men?” Given the forces involved it is not likely one personality would have made a difference. Even as great a General as Jackson could not have financed the war, built manufacturing capable of supplying the armies or increased the population of the South.
Only the insane racial theories of the Nazis stopped them from gaining the adherence of most of E. Europe including significant portions of the Russians themselves. Had they not started the mass killings quickly after the initial invasion they could have used the hatred of the Soviets that was widespread.
Killing the Jews was more important to the Nazis than the War itself. Military needs were repeatedly shunted aside to allow trains loaded with Jews for the camps to have first priority. The War on the Jews was the most important war they were fighting.
It was almost like they were human sacrifices to the Nazi God. Like the Aztecs had.
If you’ve seen the film, “Valkyrie”, which depicts the assasination/plot attempt by Col. Claus von Stauffenberg, then you would have seen that the problem was not just killing Hitler to stop the war, but the entire Nazi chain of command.
Which brings up the issue of the motive for killing Hitler. In Stauffenberg’s case, it was to stop the war to save what was left of Germany. And, this was a very dangerous and complicated objective because, as others here have mentioned, you had to get control of the military and the political powers that be in order to obtain the ability to stop the German war machine started by Hitler and the Nazi’s.
Stauffenberg’s attempt came close - he and his conspirators actually did gain partial control of some of the military and political authorities, and, even when he discovered that Hitler wasn’t killed by the bomb - he and his conspirators had planned on stopping all communications from reaching the outside world from the bunker facility where the attempt on Hitler’s life was made.
But, communications were not stopped in time and the rest, as they say, is history.
The point being that just killing Hitler without taking out the Nazi heirarchy and gaining control of the military and Gestapo would have stopped nothing.
you mean if he was killed between 42 and 43? if yes, the war would have gotten over quickly, because the underlings were ready to fight over who would be top-dog. There were at various points Hess, Goering, Goebbels, Himmler, Doenitz etc. who were angling for power.
A saner military mind would have stopped at the Dnieper-Niemen river line.
2: Would the holocaust come to an end or would it have continued?
if it was anyone other than himmler who came to power, it would have ended.
the Gestapo were Himmler's personal toy. Rommel disliked them, as did the rest of the Wehrmacht OberKommand. They would have been terminated.
if the German advance stopped and indeed stayed put, then Stalin's grip would have been lost with no 1000-year enemy...
Not to disparage or minimize the suffering faced by the Jewish people, but remember that beyond the 6 million Jews killed, the Gypsies were decimated (Porajmos) — in fact treated worse than Jews in the concentration camps. And Poles and Russians were slaughtered by Germans too...
I think the Germans would have won the war in many respects if Hitler was removed, his late term insanity misdirected many weapons that were far superior than what the allies had.
Such as the ME 282 Scwalbe, the 163 Komet, and even the V2. Germany had better subs, faster aircraft and some theorize that in an alternate reality would have supplied Japan with enough heavy water technology that the Nippon Empire would have sent its own atomic weapons to the US taking out Seattle, SF and San Diego.
many people do not realize just how technically America was deficient, if not outright backward, all America had was a superior supply chain and manufacturing capability that absolutely could not be stopped.
you forget one thing — the Soviets were only bidding for time. They would have turned on the Nazis sooner or later. The whole thing was a Russian roulette — to see who blinked first
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