Replies

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.

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.

That was probably not the main reason Germany didn't build the bomb. One reason is that most of the better physicists were either Jewish, had Jewish spouses, or emigrated because they (wisely) loathed the Nazis.

There were a few very good ones left, though. Supposedly the Wehrmacht visited them in 1942 and asked if they could guarantee a working weapon in two years. (It took the US longer than that.) The scientists declined, and the army said, "Okay, thanks, the war will be decided in two years anyway; we'll concentrate on other things" and put the nuclear program on the back-burner as far as funding.

You've heard the story, haven't you, about how the OSS sent an agent to Switzerland to assassinate Werner Heisenberg to stop the Nazi nuclear program. Heisenberg thought the assassin was from the Gestapo!

Hitler’s demanding that the Me262 be a bomber as well delayed its use as an interceptor.

Back when I started studying the european war in the late 60’s that was the first mistake by Hitler I ever read about. It stuck with me to this day.

One I often wonder about regarding the V2 rocket: Hitler was working toward an atom bomb as well as a “New York” bomber. If he had left the Soviets alone and focused on his technology, and beat England, eliminating an 8th air force threat, he could have basically replaced the USSR as the worlds competition in the cold war with the US.

In fact, I just remembered I read a novel called, The Fatherland, that takes place in the mid-60’s and is in a world where the two major powers are the US and the German empire.

> Hitler beat the Wehrmacht. He ran it into the ground. <

In 1944 the British devised a plan to assassinate Hitler. The plan was ultimately rejected for a number of reasons. One reason was that the some British officials felt that getting rid of Hitler would actually help the German war effort.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Foxley