Could Hitler win WWII IF... he had divine foresight...

[The Tiger Kingdom]

If he was going to attack, he should have waited less, if anything - the delay from April to June in the invasion date may have made a massive amount of difference.


the only one that I can think of that was objectively pro-Germany was Mosley, hence why he was arrested when war started the the BUF broken up.
The rest of people who were for accommodation with Hitler were likely just overly optimistic idealists who didn't want another war rather than actual sympathizers

Well, if I recall the biggest anti-rally in the world was an anti-fascist right (obviously) in Britain and around tha time... but I could be messing up the dates (it could have been in the 50s but I am not sure), so I doubt people would be happy if a goverment allied with Hitler.
But just imagine that, Britain in the Axis...

That was probably postwar. The BUF was fairly strong, but then again, British antifascist elements were always very strong pre and post-war as well - look up the Battle of Cable Street and all the gang activity postwar for that.
There was never any possibility of the BUF actually taking power unless Hitler actively put them there.

[Benuty]

What is it with everybody thinking Hitler would already be at war with the Soviet Union, the US, UK, French military government, and various resistance groups by the time he gained said "divine foresight"?

[DrakoLand]

Well, if I recall the biggest anti-rally in the world was an anti-fascist right (obviously) in Britain and around tha time... but I could be messing up the dates (it could have been in the 50s but I am not sure), so I doubt people would be happy if a goverment allied with Hitler.
But just imagine that, Britain in the Axis...

That was definitely postwar. The BUF was fairly strong, but then again, British antifascist elements were always very strong pre and post-war as well - look up the Battle of Cable Street and all the gang activity postwar for that.
There was never any possibility of the BUF actually taking power unless Hitler actively put them there.

Well that clears up some things. Anyway, all this "what if/could Hitler win" scenarios are stupid. I wanna know what would happen if the French instead of building the Mazzino line (fail) actually put all that money and time into building tanks, planes and new guns. Or you know, extend Mazzino on the Belgian front to.

[The Tiger Kingdom]

What is it with everybody thinking Hitler would already be at war with the Soviet Union, the US, UK, French military government, and various resistance groups by the time he gained said "divine foresight"?

Well, the OP says it would've happened by the time the war started minus Russia. Hitler's entire raison d'etre was invading Russia. Russia is going to get invaded, end of story.
As to the OP's original supposition, I guess that's a question for him.

[The Genoese Cromanatum]

Nope. Blitzkrieg tactics failed at Stalingrad, and the "superior" race failed to innovate. Without Hitler's non-interference, more Nazis could've gotten out, but the Battle of Stalingrad would still be lost by Nazis.

Ah, yes, the superior race failed to innovate. I'll be taking these early-model helicopters, the jet engine (and the first combat plane to use such), as well as the V-1 and V-2 rockets and sit them all over in the "non-innovative military technologies" section, with the American Crocodile Tank, and the Davy Crockett Mortar, because these apparently non-innovative German technologies are obviously as effective as the other two.

[Benuty]

What is it with everybody thinking Hitler would already be at war with the Soviet Union, the US, UK, French military government, and various resistance groups by the time he gained said "divine foresight"?

Well, the OP says it would've happened by the time the war started minus Russia. Hitler's entire raison d'etre was invading Russia. Russia is going to get invaded, end of story.
As to the OP's original supposition, I guess that's a question for him.

I detest this supposition, if you knew that opening a massive front in Eastern Europe would serve only to detract your valuable reserves and supply foundations to waste them on a chaotic front in the middle of a war against your enemies in Western Europe would you do it?

[The Tiger Kingdom]

Well, the OP says it would've happened by the time the war started minus Russia. Hitler's entire raison d'etre was invading Russia. Russia is going to get invaded, end of story.
As to the OP's original supposition, I guess that's a question for him.

I detest this supposition, if you knew that opening a massive front in Eastern Europe would serve only to detract your valuable reserves and supply foundations to waste them on a chaotic front in the middle of a war against your enemies in Western Europe would you do it?

Hitler did it. Napoleon did it.
So apparently, a lot of people would say yes, there.
The whole point of Nazism is to destroy Bolshevism and the Slav. If it didn't invade Russia,it was useless.

[The Tiger Kingdom]

That was definitely postwar. The BUF was fairly strong, but then again, British antifascist elements were always very strong pre and post-war as well - look up the Battle of Cable Street and all the gang activity postwar for that.
There was never any possibility of the BUF actually taking power unless Hitler actively put them there.

Well that clears up some things. Anyway, all this "what if/could Hitler win" scenarios are stupid. I wanna know what would happen if the French instead of building the Mazzino line (fail) actually put all that money and time into building tanks, planes and new guns. Or you know, extend Mazzino on the Belgian front to.

Let me quote you a post I made on the Maginot line elsewhere:

The French deliberately left Belgium unfortified, because they needed ground to fight on and maneuver through. They knew they weren't going to be operating on their own border because of its obvious defensibility, so they knew the Germans would be moving through Belgium to hit them anyway. The plans had all been laid before the war as to which French armies and elements of a prospective BEF would be taking positions on what parts of the Belgian frontier, with the plan being to seize the Meuse bridges before the Germans could get to them, and make the fight there. The Maginot Line was put in place SPECIFICALLY so that an absolute minimum of troops possible could use the fortifications to defend the frontier and make it impassable, so the vast bulk of the French Army could take up positions in line with a German advance through Belgium - just like they had in 1914, and just like they indeed did in 1940.

The German plan was nothing new at all. It was the same sort of plan that German commanders had always favored, with big, flanking, oblique maneuvers to encircle the enemy, and was essentially a repeat of Moltke's plan from 1914, even with Manstein's vaunted (semi-apocryphal) modifications to it. The German attack through the Ardennes was also far from a fatal move. Let me quote Mosier's book directly:

"Proponents of the entrapment theory, in which the Germans let the Allies move up into Belgium to cut them off at the Ardennes overlook the fact that the French were advancing on a south-north axis as well as an east-west axis. Nor was the German Army Group B strong enough to defeat the combined allied armies on its own, despite that it had the bulk of the Panzer divisions. This was, of course, what the Germans had most feared - the advancing forces of Army Group B would be caught between the Magninot forts to the east and the Allied armies to the west, and be crushed on both flanks.

"And now this fear seemed to be realized. Because at the same moment that the German armored forces were beginning to penetrate the frontier above Sedan, the advancing French mechanized units engaged the advancing armor of the German 16th Army Corps in central Belgium. The 16th's two panzer divisions were shielding the main southern armored advance. Clearly, if the French broke through, the entire German offensive would implode."

What followed was what Mosier calls "the most intense armored battle - and probably the most intense battle of any sort - of 1940", the Battle of the Gembloux Gap. And how did the sides fare there?

The Germans lost 150 tanks to enemy action.
The French lost 100, and remember, they could actually afford those kind of losses, because the Allies simply had more tanks than the Germans did.
And the Germans...retreated...in the face of an overwhelming French armored attack.

Weird, huh?

According again to Mosier, if the French Mechanized Cav hadn't been told to pull back to secure Sedan, the entire German front might've crumpled right there. The French had three armored divisons in the vicinity of Sedan, one of which was rushed immediately into battle and fought the Germans to a standstill, losing 60 tanks to the Germans' 45, which was a ratio that basically came to a draw. And even after that division was essentially deprived of tanks, the line that the other two divisions were sitting on was never even pushed back - look up the Battle of Stonne for those numbers.
The French had dealt with way, way worse losses in WW1 than the Ardennes and Sedan. Their problem was that Gamelin, Georges, and the civil government were hopelessly weak-kneed in the face of danger and let their armies down.

The reason the French and BEF lost is clear: Gamelin was absolutely the wrong man for the job, most of the highest rank of French generals were too (Petain especially included), and the British command basically let Gamelin and that shitpile Reynaud call the shots. The actual opening of the offensive began in May 10th, and I think it's fair to say that by the 15th (actually, that's the factual date of my latter example), Gamelin was declaring that he couldn't hold Paris for more than another few days, and Reynaud was literally crying into the phone to Churchill that the war was over and that they had lost. The French elite beat themselves.

And the BEF started retreating around that time to the coast, convinced of its own defeat pretty much before it had had any chance to fight, more than willing to believe the French and save themselves without bothering to make much of a fight or reevaluate the situation at the top level. When it did come into contact with German forces around Dunkirk and the environs, it fought magnificently. Everyone speculates why Hitler ordered the panzer divisions to stop advancing on Dunkirk, giving the British time to retreat - usually attributed to Hitler wanting the BEF as a bargaining chip or believing that Goering could pummel them into oblivion, but nobody ever seems to consider the possibility that Hitler didn't want his armies to lose to the British, fighting with their backs to the wall.

Because that was a genuine possibility, the other one being that Hitler wanted to save his battered Panzers (breaking down and blowing up all the while) for what he anticipated would be a massively long war in Central France.

The French and British had better tanks than the Germans. As Arras and Gembloux prove, they knew how to use them. By the time that Dunkirk had finished, the Germans had taken 50% tank casualties, and the Luftwaffe was strained to the limit. The French had objectively better artillery than the Germans (and the Brits were no slouches either), by the general agreement of both sides. The French and British had excellent commanders on the divisional level and below, including men like Monty, Alexander, Gott, Prioux (the victor of Gembloux), and countless others. They had excellent planes and pilots, and the French only ever committed about 30% of their air force (the great flaw of Poland and France that Holland, of all countries, actually learned from, hence their success - when faced with the Luftwaffe attacking, go balls-out and hold nothing in reserve. The Poles held reserves, which fucked them, and the French only used a small percentage of their airpower, holding the rest in reserve). In the long term, the Luftwaffe would have been vanquished over France.

that says about everything I wanted to say. It very nearly makes me weep how much misinformation there is about the 1940 French campaign.
The French had more and better tanks than the Germans. They had more and better artillery. They had more planes and better means of supplying them. the question you should be asking is what would have happened had the French government and a few generals not effectively betrayed their own Army.

[Benuty]

I detest this supposition, if you knew that opening a massive front in Eastern Europe would serve only to detract your valuable reserves and supply foundations to waste them on a chaotic front in the middle of a war against your enemies in Western Europe would you do it?

Hitler did it. Napoleon did it.
So apparently, a lot of people would say yes, there.
The whole point of Nazism is to destroy Bolshevism and the Slav. If it didn't invade Russia,it was useless.

You are implying Hitler would have invaded the Soviet Union even though he knew he was going to lose everything if his war in the west wasn't wrapped up. That isn't a sensible policy to conduct in warfare at all.

[The Nuclear Fist]

If you change it to "Nothing defeats Russia defensively in an actual war", then it's correct. Except for the Mongols, who were Mongols and came at Russia the other way.

'Nobody beats Russia in a defensive war when invading from the west'.

[DrakoLand]

I still don't get it, so the only reason France lost was, bad command? Wow... makes me wanna punch a wall.

[The Tiger Kingdom]

Hitler did it. Napoleon did it.
So apparently, a lot of people would say yes, there.
The whole point of Nazism is to destroy Bolshevism and the Slav. If it didn't invade Russia,it was useless.

You are implying Hitler would have invaded the Soviet Union even though he knew he was going to lose everything if his war in the west wasn't wrapped up. That isn't a sensible policy to conduct in warfare at all.

I don't think he would've believed that were true - or he maybe believed he could've changed things. There's no fucking way the USSR gets out of this uninvaded. It was the entire point of his politics and his rule.
Oh, and guess who wasn't a "sensible" policymaker for the German military? Hint: it rhymes with Schmitler.

[Benuty]

If you change it to "Nothing defeats Russia defensively in an actual war", then it's correct. Except for the Mongols, who were Mongols and came at Russia the other way.

'Nobody beats Russia in a defensive war when invading from the west'.

Then what if one were to trigger an offensive war in the east?
*Implying a more prolonged Soviet-Japanese conflict starting in the 1940s in the absence of an attack on Pearl Harbor.

[The Tiger Kingdom]

I still don't get it, so the only reason France lost was, bad command? Wow... makes me wanna punch a wall.

British command failed there too, in that the BEF effectively declared it had lost before it even fought a battle.
But yes, it really does seem to come down to that if you look at the numbers.

[Draakonite]

If you change it to "Nothing defeats Russia defensively in an actual war", then it's correct. Except for the Mongols, who were Mongols and came at Russia the other way.

'Nobody beats Russia in a defensive war when invading from the west'.

Poland


To topic:
Maybe he would change (in perspective to how he was recieved in the future) his treatment of slavs. He could have found millions of followers for the fight against the Juden-Bolschewismus in the Ukraine, a considerable boost to his manpower pool.

[Benuty]

You are implying Hitler would have invaded the Soviet Union even though he knew he was going to lose everything if his war in the west wasn't wrapped up. That isn't a sensible policy to conduct in warfare at all.

I don't think he would've believed that were true - or he maybe believed he could've changed things. There's no fucking way the USSR gets out of this uninvaded. It was the entire point of his politics and his rule.
Oh, and guess who wasn't a "sensible" policymaker for the German military? Hint: it rhymes with Schmitler.

Notice I said "While his war in the west wasn't wrapped up". I didn't say Hitler wasn't going to issue the commands toward offensive operations within Soviet territory.

[The Tiger Kingdom]

'Nobody beats Russia in a defensive war when invading from the west'.

Poland


To topic:
Maybe he would change (in perspective to how he was recieved in the future) his treatment of slavs. He could have found millions of followers for the fight against the Juden-Bolschewismus in the Ukraine, a considerable boost to his manpower pool.

Except to him, the Slav was inextricable from Jewish Bolshevism. They were one and the same.
...So that would be awkward.

[The Tiger Kingdom]

I don't think he would've believed that were true - or he maybe believed he could've changed things. There's no fucking way the USSR gets out of this uninvaded. It was the entire point of his politics and his rule.
Oh, and guess who wasn't a "sensible" policymaker for the German military? Hint: it rhymes with Schmitler.

Notice I said "While his war in the west wasn't wrapped up". I didn't say Hitler wasn't going to issue the commands toward offensive operations within Soviet territory.

I stand by what I said. Even with the West not under control, I don't see Hitler stopping the "choo choo let's fuck over Russia" train for anything.

[Draakonite]

Poland


To topic:
Maybe he would change (in perspective to how he was recieved in the future) his treatment of slavs. He could have found millions of followers for the fight against the Juden-Bolschewismus in the Ukraine, a considerable boost to his manpower pool.

Except to him, the Slav was inextricable from Jewish Bolshevism. They were one and the same.
...So that would be awkward.

Hitler being Hitler, he would have found an explanation, just as italians, japanese and native americans were arian.

[Benuty]

Poland


To topic:
Maybe he would change (in perspective to how he was recieved in the future) his treatment of slavs. He could have found millions of followers for the fight against the Juden-Bolschewismus in the Ukraine, a considerable boost to his manpower pool.

Except to him, the Slav was inextricable from Jewish Bolshevism. They were one and the same.
...So that would be awkward.

Desperate people do desperate things, like using old men and Hitler Youth to maintain the ruins of Berlin in a last ditch stand against the overwhelming Soviet forces.

[The Tiger Kingdom]

Except to him, the Slav was inextricable from Jewish Bolshevism. They were one and the same.
...So that would be awkward.

Desperate people do desperate things, like using old men and Hitler Youth to maintain the ruins of Berlin in a last ditch stand against the overwhelming Soviet forces.

except that was in keeping with his ideals - separating Slavs from Jews and Communists wasn't.

[Anderrica]

May not answer the question but I think he could have won WW2 if he had started it when he wanted to which was mid 1940's

[Benuty]

Notice I said "While his war in the west wasn't wrapped up". I didn't say Hitler wasn't going to issue the commands toward offensive operations within Soviet territory.

I stand by what I said. Even with the West not under control, I don't see Hitler stopping the "choo choo let's fuck over Russia" train for anything.

This would require Hitler's impatience (of awaiting victory) to peak at the disastrous turnout (if it does occur) of the German air ops in the southern UK.

[The Holy Therns]

Watch yourself...

You shouldn't have made the thread if you didn't want people to offer their input, dear.

[Anderrica]

Hitler actually wanted to build up a European empire and then confront his biggest nemesis Stalin's Russia