If you know how close Hitler came to beating us to the atomic age, you might change your opinion. There was a long shot covert op that detroyed Hitlers' hard water plant - but given more time, and more resources to guard his flank, that op would not have happened, and it's very likely that Hitler would have won the atomic race - just like he won the jet race. Had his fighter jet had another 1-2 years of competitive warfare - the battle of Britain and so on might have been reversed.
Hitler lost BARBAROSSA before the first shot was fired.
Even assuming that German tactical virtuosity can make up for the practical genius of the Russian T-34 platform, they began to run short of supplies in mid-July near Smolensk. The Cauldron Battles were wearing down men and equipment and using up machine parts and vast quantities of oil.
Critically, Hitler and Goering had mad the decision to keep producing consumer goods during the Wehrmacht’s greatest roll of the dice. They paid for it before Moscow.
It is because of how close he came to winning the atomic race that I put that reservation into the mix. Had Hitler not attacked the Russians at all, he would have likely won at El Alamein. This would have been a very serious blow as it would have solidified much of North Africa and supplies of Oil for Germany / Italy. The cascade effect would have been to deny the Allies a launching point into Italy.
Further, it was Stalin who kept pressuring to open up a second front on German. Had that not been in play, it would have taken at least another year before the Allies would have had the strength to push into Western Europe. Thus giving more time for the development of any number of technical advances including bombers that could strike the US (Amerika bomber program).
Had Hitler pulled off a Doolittle type raid and been able to strike at the docks of Boston, New York, Philadelphia, Baltimore, etc. I suspect that even if only minor damage occurred, the US would have pulled back some of it’s support for England to shore up defenses in the US. If the damage had been significant, it could have knocked the US out of supporting England for a good 6 months.
Had this happened, I’m sure that England would have had a second blitz and possibly even had to repel a ground attack by Germany. Significant damage would have far more likely had the atomic bomb been completed by the Germans first.
“Had his fighter jet had another 1-2 years of competitive warfare - the battle of Britain and so on might have been reversed.”
As long as we are kibitzing, the above is a VERY important point to consider.
Going on the defensive in Russia in Spring 1942 would have freed up an incredible amount of resources for R+D. The nuke program would have been just one.
The Jet program would have a better development. Remember that the ME-262 could have been ready for deployment in the summer of 1943, had Hitler not demanded that it be redesigned as a fighter-bomber, which delayed it by almost a year. Had that happened, the Bombing campaigns of Summer/Fall 1943 could have been a bloody disaster.
The Long-Range Bomber program would have likely had more resources, as well. But more importantly, the Rocket Program would have had more time, and more resources.
With the effect of Allied bombing cut back by the jets that the Allies had no real answer for, how much more output would German Industry have in the 1943/1944 period?
“Had his fighter jet had another 1-2 years of competitive warfare...”
Except all of that stuff needed fuel - which Germany was running out of due to our bombing of their facilities, and them having no access to natural resources.
I recall my history teacher saying how they used mules to move the jets around on the ground to save fuel!
My uncle was in the underground in Norway. My dad asked him once about it and he said “The Nazi’s will always be around, and I will never tell anyone, for fear of my children and grandchildren.” Of course hearing this as a kid I always imagined him being the one to blow up the heavy-water plant!
I've read several books on the subject, and I disagree.
There were several problems the Germans faced if they were to build a Bomb.
The biggest was ideological. The physics needed were considered to be "Jewish science," which was fairly accurate, and thus even those more intelligent Nazis who recognized the potential of a Bomb faced enormous resistance from the true-believer Nazis who were opposed to even studying the subject.
The resistance was similar to though somewhat less extreme than modern liberal resistance to any scientific research that might turn up facts about genuine racial differences in intelligence.
The other factor was simply one of cost. US spend upwards of $20B, in 1996 dollars, to built the bombs and the infrastructure to support them. The Germans would have had a similar cost, possibly higher due to the costs associated with constant bombing destroying or damaging facilities.
The US economy was something like 4x that of Germany, making the load on the German economy at least 4x greater.
I really don't think they could have done it.
http://www.brookings.edu/about/projects/archive/nucweapons/manhattan
The British developed the turbojet engine, not the Germans and the Meteor went into production BEFORE the ME 262. The Allies simply didn't waste as much time and effort developing weapons that relied on untested technologies that wouldn't have influenced the outcome anyway.
The Wehrmacht and its capabilities was been highly overrated because of initial successes against unprepared foes at the beginning of the war. Despite the reputation for blitzkrieg, the Heer was heavily dependent on horses for mobility, particularly with artillery. The Luftwaffe never had any effective strategic bombers, and precious resources that could have gone toward subs were wasted on the Kriegsmarine's dreams of re-fighting the Battle of Jutland.
All these alternate histories are interesting fantasies, but were as close to reality as my dreams of playing in the NBA.