If Hitler hadn’t declared war on the US, he stood a chance of beating the Soviet Union, or at least securing a negotiated truce. Once he declared war, all bets were off.
“Once he declared war, all bets were off.”
On June 1, he was fighting only Britain, which after a year of fighting alone had accomplished little except to remain alive.
Six months later, without defeating Britain, he had added both the USSR and the USA to his list of enemies.
So much for his political acumen...
Hitler had already invaded Russia the summer of 1941, prior to declaring war on the US in December of that same year. He was never going to be equipped to fight a long war, especially through the harsh winters of Russia. The U.S. had already been out-producing Germany with weapons of war that were being sent to our allies before we even entered the war. Germany and Japan were never able to keep up with war production by the U.S. and Great Britain...and because Hitler was never able to get control of the necessary fuel supplies he needed for his war machines, his plans to conquer Russia were never going to come to fruition. Hitler didn’t count on the Russians being as tough as they were, and his troops weren’t equipped properly to fight in that kind of weather.
If Hitler hadn’t declared war on the US, he stood a chance of beating the Soviet Union, or at least securing a negotiated truce.
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I watched a war documentary recently (I’ve watched so many in my life!) and this one had George Will (I know, *sshole) saying that Adolf Hitler “in a fit of thoughtlessness and contempt, declared war on the United States”.
I liked his wording there. A fit of thoughtlessness and contempt.
True, but irrelevant - Hitler could not avoid declaring war on the US. He would have lost face if - as he expected, based on publicly leaked Rainbow plans - the US declared war on him. First.You might as well argue that Germany could have easily defeated the USSR by the simple strategem of liberating Russians from Communism. Perfectly true - and, if you read Mein Kampf, perfectly beside the point of who/what Hitler was. The whole point was to turn Eastern Europe into part of Germany. On the basis of race.
explains why America had minimal military inventory upon entering WWII, but very quickly dominated the military logistics equation. FDR initiated industrial mobilization upon the Fall of France at the end of May, 1940. He asked his main man in that effort how long it would take to make the machine tools and factories required, and was told eighteen months. Amazing the coincidence between “eighteen months after May 1940” and “December 7, 1941” . . .
- Freedom's Forge:
- How American Business Produced Victory in World War II
Arthur Herman
Among the many mistakes Herr Hitler made, this one had to be one of his worst. After the attack on Pearl Harbor he should have said something like: “The people of the great German Nation proudly stand in support of our courageous Japanese ally. We will do all we can to make sure justice prevails in the Pacific.” But he should have stopped short of declaring war.
The US was already providing help to the Brits. Declaring war on the US was dumb but from the view we were already involved essentially a formality on Germany’s part.
Still, got to stand in awe of the strategic incompetence of a guy who declares war on a nation his armed forces can’t even really attack, one with vast resources, but that will be able to attack him sooner or later.
Had he not done so it is possible that WW2 would have developed into two concurrent wars, at least until some later ”provocation” of our alliance with Britain against Japan caused Hitler to be dumb. So ... maybe a few more months ... tops.
Now Italy getting into the war ... THAT was over the top dumb as well as pointless. Old BM (strategically incompetent as they come, maybe even worse that Der Wanker) was hot to trot though to start some more regional wars he had no chance of winning. He also apparently thought he’d get left out of the payola from a presumably quick German victory.
As for Italian preparedness, by some accounts I’ve encountered the Italians had issues fueling their otherwise impressive fleet during peacetime!