Could the Nazis have Won ?!?

[Vassenor]

Wasn't Sealion basically doomed from the get-go?

[The Federation of Kendor]

I have studied a lot of history, especially about the Nazis. Adolf Hitler, IMHO, was insane and a sociopath who had maxed out on Meth and couldn't have led his country to victory. Still..what if the Third Reich was taken over by someone else ? Or what would have happened if they prepared for war for a long time, say 20 years, and then busted out and waged war ? The German people were known as being very good with tools and machines. Do you think that if they kept from waging war immediately they would have won ? Say they waited for a 100 years, and then waged war ? Would that make any difference ?
So what do you think NS ? Could the Nazis have won the war if they took these measures ?

You must add your opinion. If it don't have an opinion, it will be called bloggy by the mods and get locked.

Anyway, only if Hitler was rational and the war started some years later, which would make the Nazi army more prepared.

[Constantinopolis]

Short answer: The only way the Nazis could have won the war would have been by keeping the war smaller than it was. Fighting fewer enemies, conquering less land. That would have been possible.

But defeating France, the British Empire, the Soviet Union and the United States all in the same war - that was never going to happen. The basic reason the Nazis lost was because they made too many enemies.

[The Federation of Kendor]

Short answer: The only way the Nazis could have won the war would have been by keeping the war smaller than it was. Fighting fewer enemies, conquering less land. That would have been possible.

But defeating France, the British Empire, the Soviet Union and the United States all in the same war - that was never going to happen. The basic reason the Nazis lost was because they made too many enemies.

Though there's also the Japanese mistake of attacking Pearl Harbor. The Nazis got into a war with the US because Japan attacked Pearl Harbor, and since Germany was an ally of Japan, they declared war on the US when the US declared war on Japan. The US was officially neutral before, because of what happened in WWI. Also, Japan only caused temporary setback on Pearl Harbor.

[The Empire of Pretantia]

No.

[Constantinopolis]

What's really surprising is that the Nazis got as far as they did. In the years leading up to the war and in the first years of the war, Hitler kept gambling and the gambles kept turning out in his favour. If a single one of those early gambles had gone badly for him, the Nazis would have never made it so far and they would have been defeated sooner.

[Risottia]

I have studied a lot of history, especially about the Nazis. Adolf Hitler, IMHO, was insane and a sociopath who had maxed out on Meth and couldn't have led his country to victory. Still..what if the Third Reich was taken over by someone else ? Or what would have happened if they prepared for war for a long time, say 20 years, and then busted out and waged war ?

Let's assume the Third Reich was taken over by Albert Speer, who was the least crazy and the most competent of the Nazi top brass. And that he put intelligent people in command of the armed forces, like, dunno, Guderian.

They would have come to the conclusion that the Axis, EVEN ASSUMING Italy and Japan were led by competent and relatively sane people, couldn't have taken on the British Empire, the French Empire, the US and the Soviet Union.
The German economy was already fucked up in 1936. They were running a huge deficit to fuel their military expenditure (in primis), so they didn't have time to wait and complete a rearmament program.

[Chestaan]

Maybe if they didn't attack Russia and the US it could have been possible. But then even still there's the possibility that one or the other would have got involved anyway.

[The Empire of Pretantia]

Maybe if they didn't attack Russia and the US it could have been possible. But then even still there's the possibility that one or the other would have got involved anyway.

Germany didn't attack America, it was actually more the opposite.

[Chestaan]

Maybe if they didn't attack Russia and the US it could have been possible. But then even still there's the possibility that one or the other would have got involved anyway.

Germany didn't attack America, it was actually more the opposite.

Germany's ally, the Japanese, provoked the Americans and Germany declared war to support them.

[The Empire of Pretantia]

Germany didn't attack America, it was actually more the opposite.

Germany's ally, the Japanese, provoked the Americans and Germany declared war to support them.

Germany declared war because America was attacking U-boats and supplying the Allies.

[Vassenor]

Maybe if they didn't attack Russia and the US it could have been possible. But then even still there's the possibility that one or the other would have got involved anyway.

Germany didn't attack America, it was actually more the opposite.

Apart from all the American merchant ships being sunk in the Atlantic.

[Len Hyet]

I have studied a lot of history, especially about the Nazis.

Apparently not well enough.

Adolf Hitler, IMHO, was insane and a sociopath who had maxed out on Meth and couldn't have led his country to victory. Still..what if the Third Reich was taken over by someone else ?

Like who? Sure. If the Nazis had instead been led by literally Jesus himself, in the second coming then yeah they probably could have won.

Otherwise? No.

Or what would have happened if they prepared for war for a long time, say 20 years, and then busted out and waged war ? The German people were known as being very good with tools and machines. Do you think that if they kept from waging war immediately they would have won ? Say they waited for a 100 years, and then waged war ? Would that make any difference ?

The state of the German economy could not have sustained another two years of war preparation, much less five, twenty, or a hundred.

So what do you think NS ? Could the Nazis have won the war if they took these measures ?

No. The Nazi war-machine was doomed almost entirely from the start.

[Asherahan]

Not if they declared war on all the countries they did in real life.

[The Transhuman Union]

He could have won if he listened to his generals, but no, he thought he was Napoleon (II).

[The Empire of Pretantia]

Germany didn't attack America, it was actually more the opposite.

Apart from all the American merchant ships being sunk in the Atlantic.

Merchant ships moving through British waters carrying war materiels.

Lend lease was absolutely critical to the Allied war effort, but let's not pretend supplying the enemy isn't a good reason for Germany to attack merchant vessels.

[The Empire of Pretantia]

He could have won if he listened to his generals, but no, he thought he was Napoleon (II).

He thought he was better than Napoleon.

[Tokora]

They could've conquered Europe and Africa under the right circumstances but they wouldn't've been able to defeat the US until at least the 1980's.

[Xmara]

He could have won if he listened to his generals, but no, he thought he was Napoleon (II).

He thought he was better than Napoleon.

Didn’t he even make the same mistake Napoleon made and attacked Russia in the winter?

[UniversalCommons]

More likely that Russia could have conquered Europe if we did not intervene.

[The Transhuman Union]

He thought he was better than Napoleon.

Didn’t he even make the same mistake Napoleon made and attacked Russia in the winter?

He attacked Russia on June 22 1941.
If I am correct, that's not winter in the Northern Hemisphere.

[Constantinopolis]

If they never invaded the USSR, yes.

Yes they could have won, but they decided to invade the USSR

Maybe if they didn't attack Russia

Bear in mind that attacking and conquering Russia was an integral and essential part of Nazi ideology. They believed that Germany needed Lebensraum in the east, and that the greatest enemy of the Aryan master race was the Global Jewish-Communist Conspiracy headquartered in Moscow.

The only way the Nazis could have refrained from invading the Soviet Union was by not being Nazis.

And this is the great dilemma of the German war effort: Nazi ideology was the reason they started the war in the first place, but it was also the same Nazi ideology that made it impossible for them to win the war, by setting insanely unrealistic goals.

[Xmara]

Didn’t he even make the same mistake Napoleon made and attacked Russia in the winter?

He attacked Russia on June 22 1941.
If I am correct, that's not winter in the Northern Hemisphere.

No it is not. I didn’t know the exact date.

[Shikihara]

No, the German economy was in shambles and relied on mass looting foreign countries for resources. Their brutality and coercion in those countries resulted in partisans and rebels, further compounding the fact that Sea Lion was never going to happen and that the Soviet Union was looming over the horizon to see which one was going to win.

Though I am interested on what might have happened if Japan chose the Northern Expansion Doctrine and invaded the USSR in unison with Nazi Germany. There's not really an intriguing "what if" for Italy because their armies were not prepared for a war with another European power, and their ability to do much of anything was limited after the invasion of Greece.

[Thermodolia]

He could have won if he listened to his generals, but no, he thought he was Napoleon (II).

More like Napoleon IV.