Would Germany have won the war if Hitler did not invade Rus

[The Tiger Kingdom]

Did the Germans use tanks in their invasion of Crete?

Not in significant numbers. A few Panzer IIs (essentially a light tank) were sent there, but that's about it.

My thoughts are basically this:
The Germans lost so many paras, and even more parachute transports, like JU52s in Crete and in Holland (seriously, the Dutch[!] alone destroyed something like 250 out of the 450 combat transports the Germans had available), that they'd have to do something to make up the balance, because Malta wasn't going to be a walkover. Bringing heavy equipment like Panzers into the equation would be a logical countermeasure to take, as one of the major problems with German parachute operations was just how lightly armed their paras were.
However, that would be ruled out by the Maltese terrain.

[Lemanrussland]

Not in significant numbers. A few Panzer IIs (essentially a light tank) were sent there, but that's about it.

My thoughts are basically this:
The Germans lost so many paras, and even more parachute transports, like JU52s in Crete and in Holland (seriously, the Dutch[!] alone destroyed something like 250 out of the 450 combat transports the Germans had available), that they'd have to do something to make up the balance, because Malta wasn't going to be a walkover. Bringing heavy equipment like Panzers into the equation would be a logical countermeasure to take, as one of the major problems with German parachute operations was just how lightly armed their paras were.
However, that would be ruled out by the Maltese terrain.

Yea. Those would have to be sea lifted, though. Most transport aircraft at the time did not have the capacity to airlift heavy equipment like tanks. The Junkers Ju 52 could only lift 1,820 kg. A Panzer II weighed 8.9 tonnes, or 8900 kg. The huge Messerschmitt Me 323 could carry about 10–12 tonnes of equipment, in other words just one Panzer II.

Airborne operations were highly dependent on air support in order to make up for a lack of organic firepower (most airborne units only had mortars and 105mm howitzers for fire support, and did not have the degree of mechanization that modern ones do).

Anyway, the planned invasion of Malta called for a large combined German-Italian airborne landing, followed up by a seaborne invasion of 70,000 Italian troops, along with a detachment of German armor in a second reinforcing wave (interestingly with many captured Russian tanks, like KV-1s, KV-2s, and T-34s, but also with some Panzer IIIs and IVs).

So yes, the Germans did plan to use tanks in significant numbers on Malta, but not as part of the initial airborne attack (the objective of which was to secure the high ground around the amphibious landing zones, and to capture airfields so that they could be quickly resupplied and reinforced), only as part of the follow-on amphibious attack.

[Albicia]

Nope. Hitler was going to be invaded by the Soviets, but managed to hit them before they could carry it out. But if France and Britain had acquiesced to Hitler's invasion of Poland, he may well have won the war.

[The Tiger Kingdom]

My thoughts are basically this:
The Germans lost so many paras, and even more parachute transports, like JU52s in Crete and in Holland (seriously, the Dutch[!] alone destroyed something like 250 out of the 450 combat transports the Germans had available), that they'd have to do something to make up the balance, because Malta wasn't going to be a walkover. Bringing heavy equipment like Panzers into the equation would be a logical countermeasure to take, as one of the major problems with German parachute operations was just how lightly armed their paras were.
However, that would be ruled out by the Maltese terrain.

Yea. Those would have to be sea lifted, though. Most transport aircraft at the time did not have the capacity to airlift heavy equipment like tanks. The Junkers Ju 52 could only lift 1,820 kg. A Panzer II weighed 8.9 tonnes, or 8900 kg. The huge Messerschmitt Me 323 could carry about 10–12 tonnes of equipment, in other words just one Panzer II.

Airborne operations were highly dependent on air support in order to make up for a lack of organic firepower (most airborne units only had mortars and 105mm howitzers for fire support, and did not have the degree of mechanization that modern ones do).

Anyway, the planned invasion of Malta called for a large combined German-Italian airborne landing, followed up by a seaborne invasion of 70,000 Italian troops, along with a detachment of German armor in a second reinforcing wave (interestingly with many captured Russian tanks, like KV-1s, KV-2s, and T-34s, but also with some Panzer IIIs and IVs).

So yes, the Germans did plan to use tanks in significant numbers on Malta, but not as part of the initial airborne attack (the objective of which was to secure the high ground around the amphibious landing zones, and to capture airfields so that they could be quickly resupplied and reinforced), only as part of the follow-on amphibious attack.

I'm still not convinced such a thing could've ever been pulled off. The German airborne forces were so smashed up after Holland and Crete, I can't see them doing what essentially amounted to a repeat of the Cretan invasion again if there was even the tiniest doubt.

[New Socialist South Africa]

Good argument, but I have some issues with it:

• 1) It was Nazi rhetoric to wipe out Bolshevism, a practical leader (which Hitler fortunately wasn't would have waited longer to try deal with them.
• 
  

It was Nazi rhetoric, yeah, because that's what Hitler believed. And fuck yeah, he believed it.
And yes, a practical leader would've waited, but Germany was not ruled by a practical man, so...

2) If the Mediterranean fleet and RAF caused so many problems with getting troops into Africa, how did Rommel and his army get in?

Good question. The reason was that according to what I can tell, Rommel's arrival as well as that of the (relatively pretty small) Afrika Korps was done under a massive intelligence smokescreen, and also done at a time in which the Royal Navy was struggling to contain the Italian fleet. It was a well-executed operation done at a fortuitous time. The supply and reinforcement convoys that followed them weren't nearly so reliably lucky, especially as 1941-42 drew on.

Also if Hitler had focused his military spending on Africa instead of Russia the Mediterranean fleet and RAF would have been less of a threat.

I take this to mean devoting more air and naval resources to the Med? That does make sense in theory, but seeing as how the Luftwaffe was already hugely tied down with the continuing bombing in Britain, as well as the fact that the Germans knew how precarious their whole industrial situation in terms of plane production was, they were keeping a lot of squadrons relatively close to their chest.
And naval assets? Look at the Med - it's a perfect bottleneck, with the Brits controlling both ends and no German port on the sea itself. You'd have to send ships through the bottleneck, which is exactly what the Brits are expecting to have happen and have been preparing for for years. Just sending U-Boats through Gibraltar was a massively deadly undertaking, much less surface ships.

3) If Hitler had put more work into his "Atlantic Wall" (or even fully completed it) D Day would have gone a lot worse for the allies.

The Atlantic Wall was a fundamentally flawed idea from the start. Seriously, all that time, all that effort, to build something that if you breach it at one point (which is always, always going to happen eventually), the entire rest of it is useless?
No way. Hitler just had a fetish for designing bunkers. The thing was a pipe dream. It would've taken on the level of five to seven years to actually finish, assuming anyone cared enough to plan and execute it right.
That would also take away an absolutely massive amount of useful labor, that could be devoted to offensive operations, which were much more likely to result in positive dividends anyway than building the most fucking huge fortification system in the world that's also doomed to fail.

4) Vietnam has much more overgrown and. inaccessible areas than France, Poland, etc. Also I meant more the resistance in the towns than the forests and mountains.

Maybe. The Germans tried that A LOT over the course of the war, and they were just not able to get a handle on it (except in Holland, which was kind of a weird case). I don't think throwing more men at the problem would help. It would probably just result in more dead Germans.

5) Point on he couldn't consolidate is good. It would be better if he tried end the war in North Africa and then try seize Africa's natural resources.

I take it you mean the oil.
As the Germans discovered when they took Maikop in the Caucasus, it's really easy to destroy oil wells as you're retreating. The Germans took a lot of good oil land there, but it would've taken years to get anything out of them. I imagine the same thing would've happened in Africa/the Middle East.

6) True, Stalin and Hitler only worked together in Poland out of practicality. But then again Stalin never really came rushing to the aid of his "allies" France and Britain until after the USSR was invaded.

The USSR and the Allies were by no stretch of the word "allies" before the invasion. Like I mentioned earlier, the Brits wanted to bomb the Caucasus (or at least Churchill did) when Finland got invaded. And hell, Stalin came rushing to ask THEM (well, Britain and the US, at that point) for aid when he was attacked, not the other way around.

7) Stealing the natural resources of Africa might delay or even stabilise his economy a little. True the odds were stacked against Nazi Germany (thank goodness) but with a more intelligent and patient plan. they would have lasted longer. And maybe even still be in power today.

Hitler and his cronies, with the possible exception of Hjalmar Schecht (who ended up in a concentration camp, shows you their priorities), had no idea how to run an economy, and introducing more oil wouldn't have helped matters. The entire Nazi government and economy would have kept on being somewhat equivalent to warring fiefdoms, each sector trying to horde as much influence and power as possible at the expense of the others, with massive fights in terms of control over factory production, distribution, etc.
It was flawed fatally from the beginning.
There never was an "intelligent and patient plan", clearly. There never even was a "plan". It was all just a day-by-day clusterfuck to get as much power for your organization (the Army, Navy, Luftwaffe, SS, Todt Group, Reserve Army, on and on and on) at the expense of all the others. Hitler was the only common thread that all these factions had, and even he wasn't enough to get them all to play nice together like the Allies and Soviets could. Even more of a realistic economic plan might have just spurred on the collapse even more, as this whole system of trying to get as much Hitler-favor as possible at the expense of the rest was a pretty intrinsic part of the system from the beginning, as Hitler didn't really trust anyone else to do it for him. With a system like that, maybe trying to deal with victory would have been just as bad as dealing with defeat.
Introducing more resources into broken system wouldn't have fixed the system, it'd just have added something new to fight over.

A good argument. Essentially the only way the Nazis could do better or even stand a chance of winning would be for an intelligent commander (such as Rommel) ousting all the lunatics (Hitler, Goering, Goebles, Hess and so many others) and / or by several unforseeable and random strokes of luck for the Nazis (which fortunately didn't manifest). I still believe they could have lasted much longer if they had seized the coal, iron ore, gold, diamonds, crops, human resources and oil of Africa (and maybe even bolstered their numbers with Nazi sympathisers such as Osewagbrandwag (think that's how you spell it)) instead of throwing so many men into Russia, a land that is too huge to conquer before the winter arrives and has only been successfully conquered in winter once (by the Mongols). Both Hitler and Napolean drastically sped up their demises by invading Russia (as the lost so many men).

[The Tiger Kingdom]

A good argument. Essentially the only way the Nazis could do better or even stand a chance of winning would be for an intelligent commander (such as Rommel) ousting all the lunatics (Hitler, Goering, Goebles, Hess and so many others)

Assuming a military coup...I still think that'd lead into a civil war situation between the Army and the SS, just sort of liek what happened during Valkyrie (a battle that the SS definitely won, there). Especially if Hitler was actually removed by Army elements like Rommel. Removing the SS entire (and they were loyal TO HITLER, not necessarily to anything else) would've taken a civil war.

and / or by several unforseeable and random strokes of luck for the Nazis (which fortunately didn't manifest).

Best not to rely on those kinds of things.

I still believe they could have lasted much longer if they had seized the coal, iron ore, gold, diamonds, crops, human resources and oil of Africa

That would have taken years to exploit.

(and maybe even bolstered their numbers with Nazi sympathisers such as Osewagbrandwag (think that's how you spell it)) instead of throwing so many men into Russia, a land that is too huge to conquer before the winter arrives and has only been successfully conquered in winter once (by the Mongols).

The problem was, during WW2, what were the people most likely to work with Hitler?
The answer: all the ethnicities Stalin pissed off. That provided the bulk of that type of manpower, after Russia was invaded.
The Saffie Nazis weren't nearly big enough for the Germans to care about, and were too far away anyway - and I don't think you'll find many other types of people in Africa who were prepared to work for the Nazis.

[New Socialist South Africa]

A good argument. Essentially the only way the Nazis could do better or even stand a chance of winning would be for an intelligent commander (such as Rommel) ousting all the lunatics (Hitler, Goering, Goebles, Hess and so many others)

Assuming a military coup...I still think that'd lead into a civil war situation between the Army and the SS, just sort of liek what happened during Valkyrie (a battle that the SS definitely won, there). Especially if Hitler was actually removed by Army elements like Rommel. Removing the SS entire (and they were loyal TO HITLER, not necessarily to anything else) would've taken a civil war.

and / or by several unforseeable and random strokes of luck for the Nazis (which fortunately didn't manifest).

Best not to rely on those kinds of things.

I still believe they could have lasted much longer if they had seized the coal, iron ore, gold, diamonds, crops, human resources and oil of Africa

That would have taken years to exploit.

(and maybe even bolstered their numbers with Nazi sympathisers such as Osewagbrandwag (think that's how you spell it)) instead of throwing so many men into Russia, a land that is too huge to conquer before the winter arrives and has only been successfully conquered in winter once (by the Mongols).

The problem was, during WW2, what were the people most likely to work with Hitler?
The answer: all the ethnicities Stalin pissed off. That provided the bulk of that type of manpower, after Russia was invaded.
The Saffie Nazis weren't nearly big enough for the Germans to care about, and were too far away anyway - and I don't think you'll find many other types of people in Africa who were prepared to work for the Nazis.

Fair points, but you should never underestimate the power of chance and how a handful or single different decision can change the course of History. All I know is that I ever become a Conquering warlord-tyrant I am sure as hell going to leave Russia alone. That place is the graveyard of Empires.

[Risottia]

Would Germany have won World War 2 ,if Hitler did not invade the Soviet Union? Hitler's reason for invading the Soviet Union: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0fRETQ52RrQ

I think they would have won by invading England. If Hitler would have conquered England he would control 1/4 of the world.(or 1/3?)

NSG what is your opinion?

Hitler wasn't in the condition of invading Britain except in June 1940. Too bad for him, he had not prepared an invasion force - showing, as always, that the Nazis, because of their idiotic ideology, underestimated systematically their adversary and overestimated their own forces instead.

If Hitler had prepared an invasion force in winter 1939-40, Germans could have had the occasion of concentrating all of their forces on the Pas de Calais so to build a bridgehead at Dover. Supposing they would be able to cross the Channel while the Britons were still recovering from Dunkerque - and to resupply the lines so to advance quickly on London, which means also keeping the RAF away (Battle of England!) and the RN out of the Channel - anyway they would have had still the rest of the British Empire to fight. I don't see the British Empire capitulating just because Britain had fallen. Maybe India could have seized the occasion to leave Britain, but the rest would have kept on fighting - just as the Free French were doing.

Eventually, the Nazis would have found themselves running short of fuel (as they did in 1943). Which means that the key campaigns would still have been the North African and the Eastern ones... with the Britons having shorter supply lines and the possibility of attacking any German sea convoy all over the seas... and with Stalin mustering his forces for war in 1943-44. He knew the German attack was coming, he just didn't think the Nazis would have attacked in 1941 as he estimated (correctly) they didn't have enough forces to overcome the Soviet Union.

The only hope the Germans had to end the war in their favour was a pro-Nazi putsch in Britain - that is the Hess attempt. Went wrong thanks to the Brits.

[Rubiconic Crossings V2 rev 1f]

Imagine how things might have turned out had they actually taken Gibraltar and Malta?

Then the Royal Navy and the RAF would have largely been confined to Cyprus and the sympathies of neutral Turkey. From there, they could have carried out limited attacks against German and Italian supply convoys bound for Libya. More than likely, it would have prompted the Germans to carry out larger scale raids against British bases on Cyprus and possibly another airborne invasions. Although I personally have significant doubts about the latter eventuating due to Hitler's fears of the debacle on Crete.

Well there is also that the Germans would have control of the only access point into the Med from the Atlantic...meaning that the UK and her allies would have been faced with a huge problem of supporting the British Army in Egypt. With Malta under German control....which would have been a lot easier to accomplish without British convoys supporting the island, the air war might have been a decisive factor in the North African campaigns.

[Lemanrussland]

Yea. Those would have to be sea lifted, though. Most transport aircraft at the time did not have the capacity to airlift heavy equipment like tanks. The Junkers Ju 52 could only lift 1,820 kg. A Panzer II weighed 8.9 tonnes, or 8900 kg. The huge Messerschmitt Me 323 could carry about 10–12 tonnes of equipment, in other words just one Panzer II.

Airborne operations were highly dependent on air support in order to make up for a lack of organic firepower (most airborne units only had mortars and 105mm howitzers for fire support, and did not have the degree of mechanization that modern ones do).

Anyway, the planned invasion of Malta called for a large combined German-Italian airborne landing, followed up by a seaborne invasion of 70,000 Italian troops, along with a detachment of German armor in a second reinforcing wave (interestingly with many captured Russian tanks, like KV-1s, KV-2s, and T-34s, but also with some Panzer IIIs and IVs).

So yes, the Germans did plan to use tanks in significant numbers on Malta, but not as part of the initial airborne attack (the objective of which was to secure the high ground around the amphibious landing zones, and to capture airfields so that they could be quickly resupplied and reinforced), only as part of the follow-on amphibious attack.

I'm still not convinced such a thing could've ever been pulled off. The German airborne forces were so smashed up after Holland and Crete, I can't see them doing what essentially amounted to a repeat of the Cretan invasion again if there was even the tiniest doubt.

They took great pains and several months to plan the operation, surveying the entire island, every defensive position, every AA and artillery emplacement. They even knew the caliber of the coastal guns, and how many degrees they could be turned inland. This was not the same sort of rushed operation that the landing on Crete was.

Hitler however did not support the operation for a few reasons. He had been convinced that paratroopers could not make large scale landings without appalling casualties, and did not put much faith into the Italian navy to protect the convoys. Erwin Rommel begged him to allow the operation, but he never really budged. Eventually, the whole thing became unfeasible, because the Germans borrowed many of the units that were supposed to participate in the operation to support the Afrika Korps' drive into Egypt in 1942.

[Empire of Vlissingen]

I have a Dutch video explaining why many Germans supported Hitler,
http://www.13indeoorlog.nl/uitzending3.html
Skip to 3:40 if you don't like to see the historical acting.

If you don't undertstand something ask me.

[OMGeverynameistaken]

If the Germans had invaded the UK, Admiral Nelson would have risen from his grave and sailed into the channel with the fleet that beat the Armada, and then Britannia herself would have risen from the waves and punched Hitler in the face, saving the day forever and ending all bad things. Also King Arthur would be involved somehow, and there would be a patriotic soundtrack, and probably hussars.

[The Nuclear Fist]

Explain to me how Stalin, the opportunistic bastard that he was, isn't going to invade a worn out and weakened Nazi Germany. Even assuming Germany can bring Britain to a stalemate and keep the Americans out of the war, it's going to be dead tired from doing so and dependent on trade and supplies from its neighbour, the USSR.

And now we have Soviet troops from the Urals to Normandy, and probably in Spain and Portugal, too.

[The Nuclear Fist]

Why, in the idea of a coup for Nazi Germany, does everyone seem to always put forth Rommel? Hardly the most dangerous Nazi to put in charge. What if, instead, a man like Himmler, of Heydrich, or Muller took power?

[Paketo]

Why, in the idea of a coup for Nazi Germany, does everyone seem to always put forth Rommel? Hardly the most dangerous Nazi to put in charge. What if, instead, a man like Himmler, of Heydrich, or Muller took power?

because people like Rommel, the scourge of the 8th army. he was a brilliant commander and pretty much seen as one of the sane people in the nazi party. It really wasn't about most dangerous, it was about who could lead to germany to a greater future and Rommel seemed to be the one to do that.

[The Nuclear Fist]

Why, in the idea of a coup for Nazi Germany, does everyone seem to always put forth Rommel? Hardly the most dangerous Nazi to put in charge. What if, instead, a man like Himmler, of Heydrich, or Muller took power?

because people like Rommel, the scourge of the 8th army

. . . That didn't even remotely answer my question.

[The Tiger Kingdom]

Why, in the idea of a coup for Nazi Germany, does everyone seem to always put forth Rommel? Hardly the most dangerous Nazi to put in charge. What if, instead, a man like Himmler, of Heydrich, or Muller took power?

because people like Rommel, the scourge of the 8th army

...Until the 8th Army kicked his ass.
Also, did you hit post too early?

[The Nuclear Fist]

Tiger Kingdom, you seem to know a lot about the subject and I'm always interested in learning. What do you think happens in a Himmler/Heydrich/Muller-led Nazi Germany?

[Paketo]

because people like Rommel, the scourge of the 8th army

...Until the 8th Army kicked his ass.
Also, did you hit post too early?

yes, and 8th army only kicked his ass when his tanks lost the needed fuel to operate. if he had fuel, the 8th army may have been pushed as far as iraq as they wanted to.

[The Tiger Kingdom]

...Until the 8th Army kicked his ass.
Also, did you hit post too early?

yes, and 8th army only kicked his ass when his tanks lost the needed fuel to operate. if he had fuel, the 8th army may have been pushed as far as iraq as they wanted to.

Germany never had the fuel to give them. They were always operating on a ridiculous shoestring from the beginning thanks to Germany's geopolitical situation.
Sending more fuel would have just meant more fuel tankers for the RAF and Royal Navy to sink, anyways.

Tiger Kingdom, you seem to know a lot about the subject and I'm always interested in learning. What do you think happens in a Himmler/Heydrich/Muller-led Nazi Germany?

First, good move buttering me up first.
As to your question...it's really freaking hard to tell. I'd imagine, assuming Hitler was dead or somehow totally out of the picture, and the SS was decisively in, it would basically be Hitler-style governance, with the same rough policies, but without as much of the moronic strategic fuckuppery. However, the this might've been cancelled out by the fact that the Army's last remnants of some sort of tactical/strategic independence (that in RL vanished after 7/20/44) would likely have been stamped out the second the SS came in.
Basically, Germany post-Valkyrie was an SS-run state. The SS were all Hitler trusted at that point. Hell, he even let Himmler command one of the Saar Army groups, despite the fact that Faithful Heinrich had no experience on anything resembling direct combat command of a unit that size.

[The Nuclear Fist]

yes, and 8th army only kicked his ass when his tanks lost the needed fuel to operate. if he had fuel, the 8th army may have been pushed as far as iraq as they wanted to.

Germany never had the fuel to give them. They were always operating on a ridiculous shoestring from the beginning thanks to Germany's geopolitical situation.
Sending more fuel would have just meant more fuel tankers for the RAF and Royal Navy to sink, anyways.

Tiger Kingdom, you seem to know a lot about the subject and I'm always interested in learning. What do you think happens in a Himmler/Heydrich/Muller-led Nazi Germany?

First, good move buttering me up first.
As to your question...it's really freaking hard to tell. I'd imagine, assuming Hitler was dead or somehow totally out of the picture, and the SS was decisively in, it would basically be Hitler-style governance, with the same rough policies, but without as much of the moronic strategic fuckuppery. However, the this might've been cancelled out by the fact that the Army's last remnants of some sort of tactical/strategic independence (that in RL vanished after 7/20/44) would likely have been stamped out the second the SS came in.
Basically, Germany post-Valkyrie was an SS-run state. The SS were all Hitler trusted at that point. Hell, he even let Himmler command one of the Saar Army groups, despite the fact that Faithful Heinrich had no experience on anything resembling direct combat command of a unit that size.

So you don't think Himmler could have pulled off a better position for Germany?

[Paketo]

yes, and 8th army only kicked his ass when his tanks lost the needed fuel to operate. if he had fuel, the 8th army may have been pushed as far as iraq as they wanted to.

Germany never had the fuel to give them. They were always operating on a ridiculous shoestring from the beginning thanks to Germany's geopolitical situation.
Sending more fuel would have just meant more fuel tankers for the RAF and Royal Navy to sink, anyways.

you're right but if Rommel had the needed fuel he may have been able to push 8th army farther. he also may have been able to secure enough fuel if the Iraqi coup was succesful

[The Tiger Kingdom]

Germany never had the fuel to give them. They were always operating on a ridiculous shoestring from the beginning thanks to Germany's geopolitical situation.
Sending more fuel would have just meant more fuel tankers for the RAF and Royal Navy to sink, anyways.


First, good move buttering me up first.
As to your question...it's really freaking hard to tell. I'd imagine, assuming Hitler was dead or somehow totally out of the picture, and the SS was decisively in, it would basically be Hitler-style governance, with the same rough policies, but without as much of the moronic strategic fuckuppery. However, the this might've been cancelled out by the fact that the Army's last remnants of some sort of tactical/strategic independence (that in RL vanished after 7/20/44) would likely have been stamped out the second the SS came in.
Basically, Germany post-Valkyrie was an SS-run state. The SS were all Hitler trusted at that point. Hell, he even let Himmler command one of the Saar Army groups, despite the fact that Faithful Heinrich had no experience on anything resembling direct combat command of a unit that size.

So you don't think Himmler could have pulled off a better position for Germany?

I think that couping Hitler and replacing him with a direct SS cabal would not have appreciably changed the major course of the war. It might have lengthened it a while, but the conclusion would be the same.

Germany never had the fuel to give them. They were always operating on a ridiculous shoestring from the beginning thanks to Germany's geopolitical situation.
Sending more fuel would have just meant more fuel tankers for the RAF and Royal Navy to sink, anyways.

you're right but if Rommel had the needed fuel he may have been able to push 8th army farther.

And if he had flying unicorns, right?

he also may have been able to secure enough fuel if the Iraqi coup was succesful

And how would they get that Iraqi oil to Libya, exactly? You've still got all those British forces in Iraq, as well as British Palestine.

[The Nuclear Fist]

I think that couping Hitler and replacing him with a direct SS cabal would not have appreciably changed the major course of the war. It might have lengthened it a while, but the conclusion would be the same.

Oh, I have no doubt that Germany's fate was sealed in the end. I was merely wanting to explore what would happen if say, Heydrich or Muller or even Eichmann (or Goering, of course) ended up taking over, either through a coup or one of the many assassination attempts actually succeeding.

[Paketo]

So you don't think Himmler could have pulled off a better position for Germany?

I think that couping Hitler and replacing him with a direct SS cabal would not have appreciably changed the major course of the war. It might have lengthened it a while, but the conclusion would be the same.

you're right but if Rommel had the needed fuel he may have been able to push 8th army farther.

And if he had flying unicorns, right?

he also may have been able to secure enough fuel if the Iraqi coup was succesful

And how would they get that Iraqi oil to Libya, exactly? You've still got all those British forces in Iraq, as well as British Palestine.

of course, flying unicorns were the main part of his army

they would sail it around the peninsula to the suez would be the only plausible scenario but that would take Rommel getting to suez canal first