“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.
Not crazy. Evil.
Many Russians and Ukrainians originally welcomed the Germans as “liberators”. If Hitler treated the Russian occupation more in line with the occupation of France, I think many Russians would not have fought.
Just to use one example: When the Nazi’s took the Ukraine, they were seen as liberators. Ukraine could have been a critical ally against the USSR. But Hitler created an enemy instead, rounding up the jews for extermination and treating them as “conquered”.
And, at the end of the day, the russian front was really just hitler biting off more than he could chew. If he had simply focused on Western Europe, and waited for his people to produce the atomic bomb, the Us never would have entered the war and we’d have a very different world today.
> The Russians played a much bigger role than what I was taught in school, but I think England saved western civilization. <
Agreed. And as to your first point, something like 70% of the German army was deployed in the east. Had even half of them been in France on D-Day the invasion very well could have failed.