At what point was Nazi Germany doomed to defeat?

[Snake Featherston]

I would say that the latest point it was doomed to defeat was Kursk, when it was clear even a limited offensive for limited ends was an utter failure and clusterfuck aimed at the USSR, its biggest enemy in terms of manpower and resources devoted. When the Nazis were incapable of even clearing a salient in their lines, they had the prospect of stalemating assuming a sufficient quantity of self-reinforcing idiot balls took over the Soviet Union's leadership both political and military, but their prospects of winning the war were not nearly merely dead, but most truly and sincerely dead.

 

[LeX]

This is interesting. Even if the Nazis could stalemate the Russians, would this lead the Western Allies to sue for peace?

 

[Snake Featherston]

This is interesting. Even if the Nazis could stalemate the Russians, would this lead the Western Allies to sue for peace?

No, but it would put them in a position to do some serious harm to the WAllies who will be facing engagements on the scale of the Bulge earlier on, as for them to stalemate requires PODs sometime in 1943. It to me is an open question whether or not the ideas and tactics developed for the Western Front against a relatively small number of total German manpower would have been much more efficient against a larger number of German forces. It's where the US manpower cap starts straining credulity as far as a self-imposed handicap always (somehow) surmounted.

 

[Shaby]

This is interesting. Even if the Nazis could stalemate the Russians, would this lead the Western Allies to sue for peace?

Depends of what kind of stalemate are we talking about. If Germans are able to transfer a lot of troops to the west and adjust their production to, say airplanes and uboats, then perhaps the WAllies will at least consider a cease fire, at least if this is before 1942. To be honest, any stalemate beyond 1943 is a fantasy of Manstein, but lets roll with it. If stalemate is such that bulk of German forces and industry potential are needed to maintain it, well then they are still scre*ed.

 

[LeX]

Well the physical problem with a stalemate in 43 is that if Germany moves a large number of its forces to fight in the West, that's just asking for the Russians to reorganize their forces and attack again once the Wehrmacht and WAllies are killing each in large numbers in France.

IMO if Germany played their cards right they could inflict massive strategic defeats upon the Russians in 1941 but not get trapped somewhere trying to swallow the country whole, fight an increasingly more effective defensive war against the advancing Soviet armies (to be fought principally in Ukraine and Byelorussia) and, having not lost a ton of men and machines in doomed operations like Stalingrad and Moscow, fortify and hold an area approximating from Odessa or so north to the Baltic Sea, including Western Ukraine and eastern Poland.

With some luck, the Russians won't be as efficient in using troops, and hence take massive losses just to get the 1939 borders back.
Once this goal is achieved in late 1942 or so, Stalin will think "hey the German army is still quite powerful and now back on their own turf, look how many guys it took me just to get my own land back", and call it quits. In exchange for ending the war (or calling a cease-fire), the Soviets get their 1939 borders back, minus whatever their took from Finland, which as a result of this leaves the Axis to become neutral. The Germans get free reign over everything west of the USSR.

With the Nazis and Soviets making peace, the WAllies now have a massive problem if they want to continue the war. Sure from our perspective they'll have nukes in two or three years, but nobody except a few people know that in 1942, and even then they might not be sure the bombs will work. On the other hand, the USSR and its massive armies are no longer in the fight,leaving that many more experienced and specialized-in-the-art-of-defensive-fighting Wehrmacht divisions to beat the crap out of any attempt to land on the Continent. Many will want to keep fighting so they can get their homelands back, but in the end the WAllies are going to call it quits as well. Germany now has eastern Europe minus the USSR, is allied to Italy, controls France, Denmark and Benelux, as well as Norway, which on second thoughts actually might get its independence back during negotiations since the RN can probably take it easily anyhow.

After this war, Germany will have retained a good chunk of its empire, but it will be the absolute pariah state, like North Korea except that people actually fear it. The West will be pissed at the Soviets for giving up like they did in WW1, and likewise the Soviets will proudly proclaim that they literally did all the fighting they could while the West just stood by and watched. Meanwhile, Germany will probably have gone through some kind of power struggle or reset, and besides that become more oppressive of their populations, both Germanic and not. They will also pour more and more money into superweapons in the hope that they can achieve MAD with the US and USSR.

I say long-range missiles by 1946, and nukes by 1950.

 

[The Oncoming Storm]

The last few posts pretty much sum up my thinking, the last chance of a military victory over Russia went at Stalingrad. Germany would still have needed to drive to the Urals and occupy all of European Russia, that of course is the Fatherland scenario which condems them to incessant guerilla warfare and eventual decay and collapse. After Stalingrad Germany couldn't launch a wide scale attack as it had previously, what offensive capability remained was largely pissed away at Kursk. Even then Germany could have thought a defensive war aimed at making the Allies pay too high a price for victory. They needed to win decisive battles in both the West and East but Bagration and Falaise tore the guts out of the Wehrmacht and after those it was only a matter of time. The Ardennes Offensive didn't have a snowball's chance in hell in succeeding and even if the Wehrmacht had managed to hold off the Allies there's no evidence I can see that FDR, Churchill and Stalin would have contemplated any kind of negotiated "peace with honour" with Hitler. What I think a stalemated European Theater results in is atomic bombs on Germany rather than Japan.

 

[MattII]

Voted Fall of '39, because there was no option to select an earlier period. It was only luck on their part and idiocy on the allied part that they took France so easily rather than having to grind their way through the Maginot Line. No chance of ever taking Britain, a vanishingly small chance of capturing and defending the Caucasus oil fields (the only conceivable way of beating the USSR) and about the same one-in-a-million chance of taking North Africa.

 

[kalamona]

I voted fur kursk, as the last small chance for even a negotiated peace in the east - thus reducing the overwhelming numbers of enemies.

But a real changer would be a sucessful barbarossa (capture of leningrad and after it moscow), since after barbarossa, the german forces started to decline.

 

[burmafrd]

To me hope of winning is the same thing; and the attack in the south of Russia was it.

Now HAD they been able to deny the oil fields there to RUSSIA, rather then occupy them completely, that is a factor few realize. Russia got something like 85% of its oil from there. That is lost and in a few months the RED army and Air Force are nothing but a infantry force. On foot. All industry that is not powered by coal grinds to a halt.

With the Red Army emasculated, the Wehrmach and Luftwaffe is freed to concentrate in the west. Now the situation is very messy.



However for all practical matters it was all over in December of 1941 when the attack on Moscow is defeated and Hitler declares war on the US. From that point on nothing is going to save Hitler in the end.


By the way, for those of you thinking somehow Germany could have resisted atomic attack, think again.

Starting in September of 1945, General Groves reported that they could manufacture a bomb a month for the next 6, and two per month the next 6, with production steadily increasing. After half a dozen atomic blasts and Berlin, Hamburg, etc all craters, they will quit.

Once Japan surrendered, production of fissile material was cut way back; and future production was scaled back as well. At that time Groves was confident that the US had at least 10 years before Russia got the bomb. So no reason to bust a gut making more.

 

[BlairWitch749]

win the war outright and conquer/annex/subdue all of their enemies: never had a chance of happening
force the allies to the bargaining table from a position of strength: (assuming germany would accept negotiations): Case blue.... if the Germans didn't mismanage case blue and captured the oil producing areas, and blocked the volga transportation artery, they would have been in a position to negotiate from a position of strength
stalemate: Kursk and Torch

 

[modelcitizen]

I think the minute Hitler looked east with greed instead of realistic apprehension, that was it. Did he really think he could outdo Napoleon?

 

[lucaswillen05]

I decided on Kursk because after the summer of 1943, the failure of Kursk and the subsequent defeat at 4th Kharkov there was little realistic chance of a German victory. However, even after Kursk there was a small chance of a draw. This would have required Hiler to keep Manstein and other high quality generals. He would have had to give them freedom to command as they saw fid and he would have had to stop interfering as he did so often.

The strategy then would have been to bleed the Red Army white using German tactical superiority. Even this strategy might not have worked because the Wehrmacht was being bled white as well.

However, if the Germans could have held the line of the Dneiper and avoided the Destruction of Army Group Centre and avoided collapse then there might have been a chance.

Had there been an option for the Destruction of Army Group Centre/ Operation Bagration that would have been the one I voted for. This defeat left a 200 mile hole in the German lines and required most of the Panzer Divisions in Army Group South to be transferred north to plug the gap and halt the Red Army advance. Then, in August 1944 the Red Army launched a new offensive in Army Group South that knocked Roumania out of the war (and indeed to change sides) Most importantly the Germans lost the Ploesti Oilfields. After this it was only a matter of time until theGermans used up the remaining available strategic oil reserves. Even without ofensives like the Battle of the Bulge this would have happened sooner or later. Peraps mid to late 1945. That is if the Wehrmacht did not bleed tp death first.

And if Germany was stillresisting in August 1945 the Atomic Bombs might have been used on German cities rather than on Japan.

 

[lucaswillen05]

This is interesting. Even if the Nazis could stalemate the Russians, would this lead the Western Allies to sue for peace?

Depends. Either D Day fails disasterously with no real chance of mounting another attempt for several years. Or, if Stalin is willing to agree to a Brest Litovsk style peace )or he is overthrown and his replacement is willing to do a deal of this sort) In this case a large portion of the Wehrmacht can be sent West. There, dependent on when a Soviet peace was concluded these forces could be used to deter a D Day invasion, used in a 1918style offensive in France to push the Allies back or to defend Germany itsel to bleed the Allies white on the Siegfried Line.

Not, it is true a military victory for Germany. Possibly some territoral gains in the East but the price of the deal might well hav been to withdraw from the Low Countries, France, Italy and the Balkans. But Geermny keepos some or allof Poland and the German borders of Septembe 1 1939. A victory of survival with some territorial gains and this, I think, ids the best outcome Germany could hope for. The Nazis remaiin in power at least for a time

 

[EdM]

When they invaded Russia. Without PH, the US would have stayed out and the Soviets would have dipped their heels in the Atlantic and the Mediterranean.

 

[lucaswillen05]

When they invaded Russia. Without PH, the US would have stayed out and the Soviets would have dipped their heels in the Atlantic and the Mediterranean.

Assuming no Pearl Harbour and Hitler does not declare war on the US as he did in OTL. Even then something else could have brought the US into the European war probably in 1942 or perhaps later. Some form of Lustania or Zimmerman Telegram style incident might have been the cause of this.

Even if you are right and the US does stay out of the European war can the Soviet Union survive or, without an effective lend lease to at least tide them over until they have re-established their industrial base now beyond the Urals. Without lend lease the Soviet position is worse, at least in the short term. In this position dors Stalin do a Best Litovsk deal with Hiter who keeps most or all of his 1941 conquests, at least for now.

 

[Rubicon]

Holy thread necromancy Batman!

 

[BELFAST]

When the Germans declared war on America.

 

[BELFAST]

And if Germany was still resisting in August 1945 the Atomic Bombs might have been used on German cities rather than on Japan.

American was not in a position to bomb Germany in August as much of the uranium used to attack Japan was captured form Germany.

America had a shortage of uranium.

even with the German uranium they had only enough uranium to make 3 bombs.

"Hydrick's book asserts for the first time that the surrender of submarine U-234 (shown in file photo above) and its cargo of enriched uranium and infrared fuses allowed the Manhattan Project to complete and drop its bombs on Japan in time to meet an important mid-August 1945 deadline for war planners.

"An author that challenges the traditional history of how the United States developed the nuclear weapons used to end World War II invites the face-to-face scrutiny of some of the nation's most respected scientists and historians.
Carter Hydrick's book has raised eyebrows since it was published nearly two years ago, arguing that enriched uranium found in a surrendered German submarine in 1945 was used in the bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in Japan.

The uranium found aboard submarine U-234 off the East Coast of the United States at the end of the war in Europe was used in the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima, and infrared fuses also from the vessel were used to develop the plutonium bomb dropped on Nagasaki, his book asserts. "
http://www.abovetopsecret.com/forum/thread119739/pg1

"following in the wake of the advancing Allied armies, Pash and Calvert interviewed Frédéric Joliot-Curie about the activities of German scientists. They spoke to officials at Union Minière du Haut Katanga about uranium shipments to Germany. They tracked down 68 tons of ore in Belgium and 30 tons in France. The interrogation of German prisoners indicated that uranium and thorium were being processed in Oranienburg, so Groves arranged for it to be bombed on 15 March 1945.[237] An Alsos team went to Stassfurt in the Soviet Occupation Zone and retrieved 11 tons of ore from WIFO.[238] In April 1945, Pash, in command of a composite force known as T-Force, conducted Operation Harborage, a sweep behind enemy lines of the cities of Hechingen, Bisingen and Haigerloch that were the heart of the German nuclear effort. T-Force captured the nuclear laboratories, documents, equipment and supplies, including heavy water and 1.5 tons of metallic uranium."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manhattan_Project

 

[Jason222]

Only way Hitler could have won is if he did not pick Jews. All those nuclear scientist that left Germany.

 

[Jonathan Kan]

Annex the rest of Czechoslovakia.