[Ignominious]

Here we could talk about Germany's mistakes in WW2

For example:

Opening a second front
Not taking Britain while they had the chance
Not destroying the RAF before they targeted Civilians
Not supplying Rommels Afrika Corps properly
Allowing the Vichy government to exist.

[Ignominious]

I will start by the Wehrmacht not sufficiently supplying the Afrika Corps. It is said that if Rommel had defeated Montgomery at El Alamein a number of things might have happened.

Turkey allying with their old German friends, and attacking thier long time enemy the Russians in the Caucasus.

Turkey declaring war on Germany, causing a threat to the eastern front and a Turkish threat on the occupied Balkans.

A swift sweep through to create a southern flank on the Caucasus, and the move through the Middle East and meeting the Japanese in India.

The virtual elimination of the threat from the south (the Allied assault on Sicily and Italy via Algeria and Tunisia.)

[Zoltan Varga]

Aren't you forgetting that it was fighting the Soviet Union that led to Germany losing the war not the Anglo-Americans!
A very biased western analysis there.

[Stanislav]

Germans really made no HUGE mistakes as it is, the only reason why they didn't win the war was because they were heavily outnumbered. And of course, they did try to wage battles with the most powerful country of them all. And you are right when you said that Soviet Union won the war, the atomic bomb really put an end to it, but Soviet Union won it. They fought with dignity and courage and were truimphant for our great country that still exsists in my mind.

[Ignominious]

Aren't you forgetting that it was fighting the Soviet Union that led to Germany losing the war not the Anglo-Americans!
A very biased western analysis there.

True, but if the Germans had gotten through El Alamein Turkey, may have captured Soviet Oil fields in the Caucasus and the Germans could have had more fuel for their tanks at the Eastern Front, and for the Planes going across the channel.

Germans really made no HUGE mistakes

Opening up the second front on the Soviets... History proves you cannot fight a sufficient Two front war

[Russian]

attacking Soviet Union and allowing Japs to attacks US
if Hitler would know when to stop Europe would be his right now

and not putting enough effort into the development of a nuclear bomb

[Commidget 42]

The biggest blunder was definitly the attack on the USSR, which ultimatly destroyed Germany. Allowing the Japanese to help bringt the US in early was also unacceptable.

[Ignominious]

Yeah that was a BIG mistake attacking the USSR... wasnt it the coldest winter in like 50 years? It froze the tanks oil solid.

The alliance with the Japanese wasnt a mistake, jut allowing them to attack the US that early. US intervention in Europe would have happened if England had fallen, so he intended to have the Japanese as a threat to America, so if they declared war, they would have had a ferocius 2 front war.

[KurtFF8]

they made many mistakes, hince why the war ended as quickley as it did

[Steve]

Number one is attacking the USSR. But before that he did something, which had he not done, he probably could have beaten the Soviets.

Shortly before the planned date to attack the USSR, the pro-German Yugoslav government was overthrown by a neutralist one. Hitler felt the need to bring them back into line so he attacked. This diverted troops from his planned offensive in Russia, and delayed the attack for a month or two.

Because of this, Hitler's forces were caught in the winter and we all know what happened after that. But had he attacked when he planned, he was supposed to have most of the western USSR under his control by winter and apparently would have faced less of a fight.

Then the erratic bombings of Britain were a mistake too. Had the Luftwaffe concentrated on military targets and not switched halfway through to civilian areas they could have defeated the RAF and softened Britain up for an attack.

[Comrade Serb]

I think that the biggest mistake was deconcentrating small german forces on many fronts -Africa, USSR , West - Hitler should first finish Britain (that was already dieing - only withdrawal Luftwaffe to Russian front saved them).In fact war with Britain could be finished in the beginning of 1940 - when all British group were surrounded in Belgium and Hitler let them escape. Then suppyment problem should be solved (war in colonies) and only then he could attack with ALL forces the USSR TOGETHER WITH Japan. Only this thing could be finished for us tragically. Besides, the USA was NEUTRAL (only Japan's attack caused them join the war) so I don't deny the possobility that yanks could join nazi coalition, then it could be VERY hard time for USSR , but we had Comrade Stalin than could solve thousands of such problems!
--------
Pronazi YUGOSLAVIAN government????? Hmm as I know Kingdom of Serbs , Croats and Slovens was NOT with nazi because they are REAL SLAVS and will NEVER fight against brothers -Russians. don't mess with ustashi regime in Croatia!

[Deicidus]

Did any of you read ``Letters from Stalingrad```?. It's a play where somebody reads authentic letters from german soldiers from the Stalingrad battle front. At the start they talk about the easy wins but after the first few months, the germans were shitting their pants. They'd oftently ran out of bullets to shoot at the russians. Lots of the russians didn't have arms and were running toward the germans with knives, machetes and sometimes trowing their helmet at them. They say that fury was in the eyes of the russians. Never one of the russians asked for a german soldier to help him. They described russian soldiers that were mutilated and crippled by their bullets and yet they never complained, they''d spit at the german soldiers who ``rarely`` tried to help some of them. After a while, respect became fear. The russians were not humans to them, they were something else. something that didn't know fear, pain or cold. Germans describes that how many russians they kill, twice as much crossed the channel the next day. They'd arrive in more increasing numbers. They never ran out of oil for tanks and the luftwaffen and still, they were crushed by the siege that the russians put on them during the winter. Oil means nothing to superiority when you shoot at an countless enemy.

Hitler made another mistake when he stopped one of his army at Leningrad. He could have taken it in a day but he prefered to siege it and 4 years later, when the russian front arrived near the city, it was still holding. Hitler should have supported Rommel's campain indeed. he could have taken England very fast if he tried. The allies couldnt have disembarked in Normandy.

There aslo the camps factor. They lost so much time and effort to the ``desinfectation`` of the jews of Europe that they could have used for the eastern campain.

Those are all small judgment errors that we can be gratfull for to hitler to have done.

The war would have been longer indeed but I'm not sure that end would have been different.

[Wilhelm]

Allowing the Vichy government to exist.

Actually, the Vichy government was a puppet regime run by Belrin. SS officials pranced around the streets of Marseille, having a drink with French officers who helped bring French jews to concentration camps.cThe Vichy government was more of a sub-hiring of thugs. It was a very intelligent thing to do.

Petain sold his country to the Germans, de Gaulle saved it. Of course, I could be wrong, what do you think Dri?

[Russian]

Deicidus,

I actually want to read the book you are talking about, but the one I found on amazon is called "Last Letters from Stalingrad" is this the book that your are referring to?

[Generalissimo Talonius]

I think it was more Russia's climate and geography than the Russian soldiers that defeated the Germans. Obviously, the Germans were much better equipped and trained, but they could not deal with the Russian winters. This is the same thing that prevented Napolean from conquering Russia too. And I think it was Hitler's own blunder that brought down the Third Reich than anything the Russians ever did ( he just didn't seem to know when to retreat and re-group. He forgot some of the most basic principles of War ! ). Other than that, I would say not conquering the UK and poorly supplying the Afrika Korps was the other things.

Also, Germany had to basically fight Italy's battles too, because let's face it, the Italian Army SUCKED. It would have actually proven beneficial to Hitler to NOT have Mussoulini as an ally ( he even said so at one point ) . I think he would have done better if he had Francisco Franco and the Spaniard with him instead of the Italians .

[Proctor]

I don't understand why Franco didn't join the war. You know, 'fight for fascism' and all. I would have thought he owed Hitler a favour or two since he won the war for him.

[Adrien]

Allowing the Vichy government to exist.

Actually, the Vichy government was a puppet regime run by Belrin. SS officials pranced around the streets of Marseille, having a drink with French officers who helped bring French jews to concentration camps.cThe Vichy government was more of a sub-hiring of thugs. It was a very intelligent thing to do.

Petain sold his country to the Germans, de Gaulle saved it. Of course, I could be wrong, what do you think Dri?

I definitely agree with you.

But in fact Pétain himself must have been more or less (blindely) thinking he was not a puppet but a true leader, not submissive to his german friend: he made up a cult of personnality, did things german did not even asked toward the Jews, pretended to start a new era ("la révolution nationale" i think it was),... On the other hand he didn't say a thing when germans forbid him to create official institutions, with a real Constitution, money with his face on it,...

Anyway, De Gaulle did more than just save the nation: he made it France again. (wow that's a nive sentence )

[Gothmog]

[quote="Rat Race"]Here we could talk about Germany's mistakes in WW2

For example:

Opening a second front

-This no doubt costed the Germans the war. A stalemate could
-be reached if they didn´t declare war on Russia. Furthermore,
-this war deprived them from raw materials they were buying
-from Russia.

Not taking Britain while they had the chance

-Britain couldn´t be defeated due to lack of naval power.
-However, Germany could have cut the communications
-between Britain and its colonies. It should be achieved
-by a concentrated effort in the Mediterranean sea, with
-the use of aircraft to interdict the naval traffic there. And
-it was necessary to take Gibraltar.

Not destroying the RAF before they targeted Civilians

-Another mistake, but the detruction of RAF wouldn´t
-allow a decisive defeat for the British.

Not supplying Rommels Afrika Corps properly

-This was the result of war on Russia. It drained all the
-German resources.

Allowing the Vichy government to exist.

-Not a great mistake.

-Well, thanks God the Germans commited all those
-mistakes....

[Wilhelm]

-Another mistake, but the detruction of RAF wouldn´t
-allow a decisive defeat for the British.

Yes it would. The Germans were thinking of crossing the channel to invade Brtain in an amphibian attack, but it was not possible with the RAF patrolling the channel, as it would have destroyed every boat going to Britain before they could even reach the British coast. So hitler decided to start an air battle to destroy the RAF, which they couldn't accomplish. Britain was a key element, with Britain under the Germans, all Europe would have been lost, and the USA would have to wage a war on two fronts, with Germnay on one side by the Atlantic, and Japan on the Pacific. Also, operation overlord wouldn't have taken place, it would be impossible to cross the Atlantic to stage an amphibian attack on Britain.

I think that it was not a mistake declaring war to the USSR, the mistake was not taking Moscow while they had the chance. Because Hitler decided to take oil fields in the Caucasus before taking Moscow, so the winter caught them.

[Siberian Fox]

I think that it was not a mistake declaring war to the USSR, the mistake was not taking Moscow while they had the chance. Because Hitler decided to take oil fields in the Caucasus before taking Moscow, so the winter caught them.

Actually it was the decision by Hitler that Leningrad was a more important target than Moscow, despite High command trying to explain to him that the Moscow was the hub of the Soviet rail network, and that surrounding it would effectively disable the entire country. By the time Hitler had been convinced and changed the thrust of the attack to Moscow it was too late. Stalin had Zhukov transfered from his sucessful defence of Leningrad to defending Moscow in time to prepare an adaquate welcome (and winter counter attack).

Germany didn't switch to attacking the Caucuses and meet defeat at the fateful battle of Stalingrad until 1942.