All sorts of mitigating factors “won the war” for the allies. I think the biggest one is Hitler’s incompetence as a CIC.
“All sorts of mitigating factors “won the war” for the allies. I think the biggest one is Hitler’s incompetence as a CIC.”
I always thought that if Hitler wasn’t crazy, Germany could have won that war. I also thought that if Hitler wasn’t crazy, he wouldn’t have tried.
You’re right, lots of factors. The Russians played a much bigger role than what I was taught in school, but I think England saved western civilization. If England had buckled, America wouldn’t have had a staging area close to Europe, and Hitler could have pivoted back to Russia without worrying about his western front.
Hitler made mistakes.
Hitler single mistakes that cost him the war was declaring war on the United States, and allowing the German army and Gestapo/SS to treat the Polish and Russians badly (they probably would have joined with him against Stalin). Japans single mistake that cost them the war was attacking Pearl Harbor and not the Russians.
Everything after that involved the United States and US war production which was so disparate, that he War could only end one way.
There was a military history professor at West Point in the 1980’s who had the view that the Allies did not beat the Wehrmacht. Instead, Hitler beat the Wehrmacht. He ran it into the ground.
Giderian was ready to execute Sea Lion. Hitler decided to go East instead, although I suspect a pessimistic assessment by Canaris had something to do with it. Canaris deliberately threw a few spanners in the works
Hitler’s demanding that the Me262 be a bomber as well delayed its use as an interceptor. Otherwise the Allied bombers would have been decimated.
Then there were the V weapons. No significant military value, just a terror weapon, diverting otherwise valuable resources. Yet these were the predecessors to the current ballistic and cruise missiles.
Then there were political roadblocks to Germany developing a fission weapon. That was the rejection of so called “Jewish Science”, which Germany’s remaining scientists were politically not allowed to use. The rejected resources wound up somewhere in New Mexico, and made a glass parking lot that is still a little “warm”.
And that is just a few blunders by the little corporal who relied on his fortune tellers.
Hitler fu*ked himself by spending so much effort killing Jews and thinking he was smarter than his generals.