Germany could not win ww2?

I wanted to base this discussion on these two videos I saw, I would like you to watch and give your opinions.



So, could Germany have won World War II in your opinion? If not, how long would they have fought at best hipotesis?
 
Only with unrealistic foresight from Germany and Japan, which still requires lots of luck, and probably keeping America neutral.

If Japan realizes that occupying Indochina puts them on an unwinnable collision course with the West, and they can only win wars with SU/BE if Germany wins in Europe, Japan could stay out of Indochina and join Barbarossa. If Germany leaves Italy to their fate in NA, they can get more men and supplies for the important front.

Japan and North Africa Corps joining Barbarossa doesn’t necessarily win them the war in the East, but it could open the possibility of getting to the AA line by some point in 1942 (and some big gains for Japan). Germany and Japan could use the trans Siberian Railroad, which probably doesn’t do more than help a small amount.

But if the USSR is out of the way at some point in 1942 Germany will have gotten what they wanted. This probably butterflies away Pearl Harbor, and might delay American involvement.

Germany could hold on and win at this point if they fight the US and America gives up eventually without Pearl Harbor as a motive and a tougher fight, and they should certainly win at that point with no American entry.


It’s not likely, but not ASB.




If the Soviets join the Axis and declare war on Britain, that potentially forces Britain out of the war, and if Italy is also fighting Britain I don’t think Britain could hold out in MENA, which IMO would knock them out of the war. Germany could then backstab the Soviet Union after Britain is defeated and Germany is capable of winning that matchup, especially with a surprise attack and the help of the Axis Minor.


Germany could try invading Turkey which could potentially increase pressure on Britain, but might not work at all and leaves Germany incredibly overextended and exposed to Soviet attacks.



If Britain invaded Norway and Sweden fights in the Winter War, scenarios where Norway and Sweden become German allies who help invade the USSR could cause Leningrad to fall and free up significant German troops. That doesn’t sound like a likely war winner.




I think these are potential options. But all of them seem unlikely to happen and still probably can’t give Germany the win most of the time.
 
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Nobody who picks a fight with the British Empire & Commonwealth, then the USSR, then the USA, is winning anything.
 
Problem is if GB is in the fight , Germany runs out of its oil reserve in 1942 unless the USSR is still neutral and providing oil to it. Given both Stalin and Hitlers views, its unlikely to be the case. Germany was delaying paying in 1941 and thought it needed to attack the USSR by 1942 if it had a chance of winning. Stalin on the other hand was completing the rebuild of the Red Army and by 1942 would have been demanding payment in full or else.

So Germany has to secure Russian oil or break GB's blockade to win , OTL both were impossible and its hard to see in hindsight how either could be realistically achieved. Germany does not have the oil for a long war in Russia and never came close to a strategy threatening the blockade. Churchill did play it up to the Americans to get more Lend-Lease/support but the degree of USW needed to break it would have caused the US to openly join the war ( as it was the USN was escorting ships all but to Ireland )
 
They came within an hair of doing it both years, particularly in 1941.
Nope , 1941, only if taking Moscow would have caused a Russian collapse, Heer thought it would , history says otherwise ( 1812 ). 1942 they went for the oil but never realistically had enough themselves in hand to do the job, the forces that got closest to an intact field were all but out of supply ( and the Russians were too good at demolishing them for them to get enough to make a difference ).
 
Nope , 1941, only if taking Moscow would have caused a Russian collapse, Heer thought it would , history says otherwise ( 1812 ). 1942 they went for the oil but never realistically had enough themselves in hand to do the job, the forces that got closest to an intact field were all but out of supply ( and the Russians were too good at demolishing them for them to get enough to make a difference ).

1812 is a bad comparison, primarily because the nature of war had massively changed. No longer could you supply an army of 100,000 via a cottage industry of muskets, but instead required thousands of miles of railway and an extensive industrial net to meet the needs of a military in the millions. The capture of both Moscow and Leningrad, which nearly happened in both cases, would've collapsed much of the Russian railway network and much of their production, outside of the loss of the C&C both cities provided and their morale value.

As for 1942, it's not the oil that I'm talking about but the grain production afforded by the Kuban and the bits of Ukraine. The USSR's output was reduced right down to to the bottom in 1942-1943 and they were utterly dependent on Lend Lease to survive; had the Germans retained control of the Kuban, it's likely mass starvation would've broke the Soviets.
 

CalBear

Moderator
Donor
Monthly Donor
Nobody who picks a fight with the British Empire & Commonwealth, then the USSR, then the USA, is winning anything.
This^

You don't strap on three of the worlds four biggest economies, including one that is effectively invulnerable to attack, and have a friggin' prayer.
 

Garetor

Gone Fishin'
You need an army who's main source of motive power isn't the horse to be able to pull that off. None of the armies invading the USSR had managed to fully motorise (let alone mechanise).

Indeed. Wages of Destruction is a great book for learning about the German economy and logistics difficulties in this era. German logistics were going to fall apart after penetrating about 500 miles into the USSR, and not all the rearranging of variables about Yugoslavia or North Africa or whatever are going to change that. And that's not even including the threat of the US! They needed the USSR to collapse almost immediately, to then just as quickly seize the entirety of soviet industrial capacity, and then turn it towards the purpose trying to keep up with US production colossus. Already a very, very tall order, but then add to that the fact that the German plan for occupation was to starve and murder all those people they needed to run Soviet industry? Not a chance.
 
1812 is a bad comparison, primarily because the nature of war had massively changed. No longer could you supply an army of 100,000 via a cottage industry of muskets, but instead required thousands of miles of railway and an extensive industrial net to meet the needs of a military in the millions. The capture of both Moscow and Leningrad, which nearly happened in both cases, would've collapsed much of the Russian railway network and much of their production, outside of the loss of the C&C both cities provided and their morale value.

As for 1942, it's not the oil that I'm talking about but the grain production afforded by the Kuban and the bits of Ukraine. The USSR's output was reduced right down to to the bottom in 1942-1943 and they were utterly dependent on Lend Lease to survive; had the Germans retained control of the Kuban, it's likely mass starvation would've broke the Soviets.
No oil and Germany cannot not only keep attacking but has to pull back ( or get destroyed as per OTL, its why Germany was so limited in mobile war by 1942 ), USSR survived OTL and would realistically in any scenario that Germany does not have more oil.
 
No oil and Germany cannot not only keep attacking but has to pull back ( or get destroyed as per OTL, its why Germany was so limited in mobile war by 1942 ), USSR survived OTL and would realistically in any scenario that Germany does not have more oil.

That Germany continued to fight for a further four years, conducting massed armored attacks into March of 1945, kinda makes that an unrealistic claim. Indeed, oil shortages did not become acute until 1944, thanks to stocks captured in 1940-1941, access to Romania's supply, and finally domestic production which was actually quite considerable.
 

nbcman

Donor
That Germany continued to fight for a further four years, conducting massed armored attacks into March of 1945, kinda makes that an unrealistic claim. Indeed, oil shortages did not become acute until 1944, thanks to stocks captured in 1940-1941, access to Romania's supply, and finally domestic production which was actually quite considerable.
Spring Awakening when the Soviets are at the gates of Berlin is not a decent counterpoint. The Germans were on the strategic defensive since 1943 and a handful of narrow spoiler counterattacks don’t mean that Germany was capable of large scale mobile attacks.

EDIT: the results of the March 1945 ‘offensive’:
On March 19, Soviet recapture the last territory lost during the 13‑day Axis offensive. Sepp Dietrich, commander of the Sixth SS Panzer Army tasked with defending the last sources of petroleum controlled by the Germans, joked that “6th Panzer Army is well named—we have just six tanks left.”
 
Spring Awakening when the Soviets are at the gates of Berlin is not a decent counterpoint. The Germans were on the strategic defensive since 1943 and a handful of narrow spoiler counterattacks don’t mean that Germany was capable of large scale mobile attacks.

It's a pretty firm counter that oil prevented decisive German offensives in 1941-1942 if they were capable of major offensives into 1945. Spring Awakening, in scale, was actually larger than Case Blau in '42, with 300,000 to 200,000 men involved.
 
Let me put that in numbers
in begin of operation Barbarossa 1941
The Third Reich attacks with 3.8 million personnel the USSR
The Soviet union Red Army had 4,5 million enlisted and had 12 million men in reserve.
A German soldier hat to kill 2 Soviet soldiers in order to survive
but in 1945 1.9 million German soldiers were fighting against 6.5 million Red Army soldiers on german soil.
Now a German soldier hat to kill 4~6 Soviet soldiers in order to survive.

Another brilliant Idea was declaration of War to United States of America
The US just order more Weapons at industry and used them on Two front war successfully.
Bombing Germany and Japan back into Stone Age, follow by domiciliary with US soldiers armed to the teeth...
 

nbcman

Donor
It's a pretty firm counter that oil prevented decisive German offensives in 1941-1942 if they were capable of major offensives into 1945. Spring Awakening, in scale, was actually larger than Case Blau in '42, with 300,000 to 200,000 men involved.
What was ‘decisive’ about it? The Germans were stopped and swept aside in March 1945 - just as they were stopped in 1943 in Kursk and they were ultimately stopped by the Soviets in 1942 and 1941 when the Germans couldn’t maintain their momentum due to losses and an inability to keep their forces in sufficient supply.
 
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