Not to glorify nazis, but arguable they fought a whole bunch of wars against most european countries and won all of them until they came up against some big ones.
Arguably their biggest mistake was trying to fight both world superpowers at once, in the USSR and Great Britain backed by the US. I can’t imagine how they thought that would go well, but thank fuck they did, cause I wouldn’t want to see the world they envisioned.
They almost did win against the USSR. A harsh winter perhaps was the only thing that stopped them. If that happened, those millions (most were there) would have been freed up to fight in the West.
Edit: Why reply and immediately delete the comment? I would like to hear your thoughts.
What makes you say they almost won? They certainly did not. They could’ve taken Moscow and it would’ve made no difference. The USSR had way too many people, people who really didn’t want to be taken over by Nazis, and way too many resources from the US/UK for Germany to overpower them. And Germany was doing extremely poorly on resources (especially oil and steel) near the start of the war – the entire reason they invaded the USSR to begin with was because they didn’t have enough oil to meet their demands, and they knew they would collapse without seizing the USSR’s oil production/reserves (unfortunately for them, that was never going to happen). The British cutting them off from African oil made the issue signicantly more urgent. Germany also had an inferior navy to the UK, not to mention the US, with their only advantage being the large amount of submarines they had. They couldn’t realistically project much power outside of where they had land control, and crucially couldn’t protect imports from Norway, Africa, and Asia enough to make a big difference.
Germany practically signed their own death warrant by the time they invaded France. They just didn’t have the resources or arguably even the manpower to sustain that kind of war, even when controlling most of Europe and a large portion of Africa.
I’ll give some numbers to help visualize: During WW2, Germany’s peak oil production was 71,000 barrels per day (1944), mostly synthetic oil from coal. For comparison, the United States’ peak oil production was 1,875,000 barrels per day (1944) and the USSR’s was 700,000 barrels per day (1941). Germany’s peak steel production was 29.3 million tons (1944); the United States’ was 89.6 million tons (1944). The USSR produced less, about 8.5 million tons at peak (1943), but they also received about 400,000 jeeps, 7,000 tanks, 5,000 other armored vehicles, 12,000 aircraft, and a bunch of other supplies totaling up to about USD$150 billion adjusted for inflation, so steel wasn’t really much of an issue. Comparing populations, Germany’s was 69 million. The US’ was 132 million and the USSR’s was 190 million.
Considering that, it may become easier to see why Germany had absolutely no chance against the USSR in the long run; taking major cities doesn’t capitulate them. They fought tooth and nail to keep Germany from obtaining Russian & Ukrainian/Belarusian resources, as is famous from using scorched Earth tactics. It was pretty much impossible to successfully invade the USSR almost like how it’s impossible to successfully invade the US.
In their defense, they kicked the everliving shit out of one world power (France) already
France at that point was not a military superpower. Or even a superpower at all. When WW2 started, France was barely out of ww1 shellshock.
I don’t think people realize how fucking BRUTAL ww1 was on France.
There are still areas today (not a lot thankfully) that are considered inhabitable today because of the vast amount of bodies (animal and human), unexploded ordinance, chemical damage… https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zone_rouge
Farmers still find unexploded ww1 ordinance when plowing their fields. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iron_harvest
Entire forests and villages razed. And I mean, razed down to the ground. Nothing left standing. Not a tree, not a brick.
When I was a kid growing up in my village, the one advice our parents gave us almost every day was ‘if you find something shiny, don’t touch it.’
Last year I was having a walk in the forest after a good rain and found, half buried in the mud, a German grenade, right in the middle of a path I used to ride my bike almost every day. A friend lost a hand when he found one when we were kids.
BTW, this is what Gazan kids are going to deal with, Ukrainian kids too. Anyone who supports Israel, anyone who supports Russia, supports the future suffering of the kids.
If you’re brainwashed by your own propaganda, attacking both superpowers probably feels like a good idea
I don’t think they wanted to do that. I believe the plan was to pressure the UK to make deal and once that was done they’d be free to attack USSR
They fought most of the rest of the world all at once and it was pretty touch-and-go there for a bit.
If Hitler had died of a meth overdose in early 1940 I could see the universe of ‘The Man In The High Castle’ coming to pass.
As it stands, meth heads gonna meth, and he decided fighting on 2 fronts was fine.
Propaganda is helluva drug.
I mean, the only reason they lost was because they decided to fight Russia in the winter and Japan attacked the US too early, meaning Germany had to fight on two fronts.
Germans might have won if they kept with their “one at a time” strategy. What a different (even worse probably, if you can imagine it) world that would be.
Operation barbarossa started at the height of summer. The reason the winter fucked them so hard is they refused to prepare for it in meaningful way such as sending winter uniforms for the soldiers. In many ways the nazis were incredibly incompetent.
Yes. I think it probably had to do with their stubborn viewpoint. They thought they were the best. They thought they were an unsinkable ship. And when people do that, they start making careless mistakes. Its really quite silly they did literally nothing to prepare for the winter front, or at least try to postpone invading Russia until after winter had passed.
But I suppose the final version of events turned out alright, all things considered. They’re almost entirely gone now and that’s what matters.
The Manhattan Project, which lead to the creation of nuclear weaponry, was only started in 1942, which was after the Pearl Harbor bombing in 1941. It was started as a response to entering World War II, not as a precaution. Had Pearl Harbor not been bombed, it is doubtful the Manhattan Project would ever have been started. The US seemed to not want to get involved until Japan forced their hand, so it is likely the US would have remained outside of the conflict had Japan not attacked.
Had the US remained untouched by World War II, and assuming Germany somehow gained control of every country in Europe, Asia, and Africa, it is doubtful the US would have had enough time to complete the Manhattan Project. And even if they did, what would it gain them by nuking Germany? At that point Germany would already control half the globe. Surely they wouldn’t nuke German occupied countries and catch millions of innocents in the crossfire? The only thing they would realistically be able to do is try to keep Germany on the Eastern Continents and heavily fortify Alaska.
Look, all things considered, the actual history is probably pretty good compared to the nightmareland that could have been if Germany wasn’t so self-absorbed.
Not only that, but they were also defeated by the cooperation of different nations that would let anyone join if they wanted.
So the Nazis were literally defeated by diversity and inclusivity.
I have been involved in “big business” at several times in my life, someone actually gave me authority to build teams and create projects. I discovered that there are different schools of thought about what makes the “perfect team” to work on a project, and most managers go through the hiring process in mind of getting candidates that all are the same, all have the same personality, skillset and background, under the belief that homogeny makes for a more harmonious, predictable team.
Not me fam. I painted goddamn abstract art with a pallet of people. I got the most diverse teams I could, I got outspoken, angry black mothers alongside timid, pasty nerds alongside combat vets alongside immigrant chefs.
It took constant “babysitting” to make sure everyone was getting along and understanding each other, but we kicked ass. It’s an amazing feeling putting together a team that can handle changes and can provide input on things you never thought of and who actually care about the results. Not only did we succeed at every challenge, I made lifelong friends and learned new things every day.
Diversity and inclusion is literally being used like a slur lately and it burns me. Diversity of backgrounds and perspectives is one of the most valuable strategic assets you can have around you. The people who surround themselves with people who already agree with them and have nothing new to add may pass challenges, but if you want to defeat challenges, you need a spectrum of perspectives.
