A 'Healthy' Hitler

Would WW2 have been less awful the same or worse if the dictator had the same level of mental and physical health he had in say 1938 throughout the war?
 
A lot of books and sites have listed the things Hitler "could have done" to win World War II. He didn't need to do any of those things, he needed to do ALL of those things, at least if he wanted any victory beyond conquering France, and as long as Churchill was PM the war was an all or nothing proposition even without Barbarossa. Even without Churchill, Britain felt a bit of guilt over letting down Czechoslovakia and wasn't keen on repeating that mistake. And Barbarossa's a big enough challenge without another front, so he had to do everything right the first time. Even as Hitler was touring Paris the seeds of his defeat had already been sown, because the BEF had escaped Dunkirk. It should be noted that even before Dunkirk the Battle of Arras had inflicted enough casualties to make German leaders apprehensive, and this was a big factor in the "halt orders".
 
Geez, too many butterflies here to count once you introduce mental health to the equation.

I've always been intrigued by the theory that he basically rushed into WW2 because he got a terminal health diagnosis.

Last year the University of Pittsburgh published a study suggesting that the Parkinsons itself contributed to his rash decision making: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/26093359
 
The war may be won if Hitler does not take over Case Blue.

Well, if Hitler doesn't step in during August 1941 or January 1942 then there probably isn't any Case Blue at all... or possibly even in March 1940.

That being said, there's sort of a cause-effect-cause at work here where the Hitler of 1938-1941 made decisions that put Germany by 1942 in a position that was pretty bad. That put stress on Hitler that caused his health to deteriorate and further worsened his decision making, especially post-Kursk. So it's kinda an ugly self-perpetuating cycle...
 
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Well, if Hitler doesn't step in during August 1941 or January 1942 then there probably isn't any Case Blue at all... or possibly even in March 1940.

That being said, there's sort of a cause-effect-cause at work here where the Hitler of 1938-1941 made decisions that put Germany by 1942 in a position that was pretty bad. That put stress on Hitler that caused his health to deteriorate and further worsened his decision making, especially post-Kursk. So it's kinda an ugly self-perpetuating cycle...
Maybe, maybe not. A healthy Hitler may recognize that Guderian's plan of leaving his flanks exposed and being fueled by parachutes dropping supplies was a little too pea-brained. The Kiev move might have won out by default, as AGC needed time to catch up and having all of those tanks just sitting around would have not served much of a purpose.
 
Can you elaborate?
A few threads as of late have established the following as a likely course of events--

-Case Blue is never taken over by Hitler, the original plan was to take Stalingrad before the mad dash to the Caucasus.
-Splitting AGS to AG A and B created massive logistical difficulties when AG A pivoted south. A sane Hitler might* have avoided this and let the plan go as is.
-To quote WIKI: The success of the initial advance was such that Hitler ordered the Fourth Panzer Army south to assist the First Panzer Army to cross the lower Don river.[34] This assistance was not needed and Kleist later complained that Fourth Panzer Army clogged the roads and that if they had carried on toward Stalingrad, they could have taken it in July. When it turned north again two weeks later, the Soviets had gathered enough forces together at Stalingrad to check its advance
-If plan goes as is, Stalingrad likely falls on the march.
-The Germans probably shore up their entire line on the Don river (something they never completely done) and then sprint south, their advance ending roughly where it did IOTL.
-The Don river is highly defensible, as its shores are cliffs. Without use of the Volga for transportation, the Russians would not be able to supply a northern pincer for Operation Uranus. Any counterattack would be in the south, how far south depends upon how far south on the Volga the Germans get.
-It is worth noting that the Russian supply situation without the Volga and Stalingrad gets tenuous, as I think that all supplies would have to be carried through the Caspian sea.
-Because of the above, Operation Uranus fails, which means the Germans are on the Volga until summer 1943.
-Russia had only a year's reserves of oil. Without the Volga, Russia essentially will get cut off from almost half of all their oil (some will still make it north through the Caspian Sea. Possible ATL German bombing missions may disturb production in Baku. Something they may opt to do when they realize they cannot stop the Russians from sabotaging the wells after capturing Maikop.)
-So, by mid 1943, the Russians have to win a Kursk-like battle...or they run out of oil. The problem is the Germans never lost sixth army or all of those men in Stalingrad. The Germans would be defending on the banks of the Don. The Russians would also be low on fuel, and confidence after winter setbacks (other than operations in the Leningrad theater, probably.)
-If the Russians fail to retake Stalingrad in mid 43, the war is pretty much over for them. They will sit back and wait for the western Allies.

Now the above can still lead to German failure (Wallies clobber them, they withdraw significant amounts of men to shore up Italy, etcetera.) and it ignores other possible hindsight decisions (sending Manstein to Leningrad early instead of to Sevestapol in 42). However, if the Italians are never crushed in Russia in 42, their desire to fight is upped a bit, the Germans situation in the Mediterranean mid 43 not quite as disastrous, which means Russia may drop out of the war, as without fuel they cannot keep fighting. PLUS, Russia had famine in 43 which was alleviated by recapturing huge parts of Ukraine...here that does not happen. Plus, they do not get the manpower bonuses of recapturing significant amounts of their territory back, so in fact the Waffen SS and force labor conscriptions gets these bonuses. Its enough to force Russia out. Even if Germany can only take out 1,000,000 men from the Eastern front (the rest will have to occupy and screen the Soviets), the Wallies never dealt with an army group equivalent of battle-hardened veterans from the East. The Germans may successfully knock the Wallies out of Italy (which almost happened in September 1943) and this forces the issue of Overlord 44, which might fail or become a friggin quagmire the Wallies won't have the stomach for if the Germans agree to some sort of peace that let's France off--if they don't entirely knock the Allies back into the sea, which isn't entirely out of the question.
 
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They didn't?
No, at most they dealt with a few veteran divisions piecemeal. It is worth saying when this had actually occurred (like the Maginot Line in Italy) the Wallies were stopped in their tracks, until the Germans were completely outflanked by the landings at Anzio. It would be hard to outflank Germans when they have more men in the theater (something they would have in the case they had a million more men--there are only so many men the Wallies can unload off ships within a reasonable period of time after all.)

Otherwise, with the exception of the Afrika Korps (which was almost entirely Italians to begin with), the Wallies never faced anything more than training divisions, fortress divisions, penal battalions, and divisions from the eastern front being reformed (i.e. Panzer divisions without a single Panzer, etc.)

If the Germans took the equivalent of AGC and shipped it to France it will be a close thing for the Wallies, even with complete air superiority. That's why I said with a sane Hitler, it is possible that the Germans could have won the war--though they can still lose it.
 
Hitler went off the rails when his methinfedame addiction got out of control,he was crazy nuts before that but somewhat rational after one of his emotional fits had passed.
A "healthy" Hitler would have hurt the Soviet Union far worse but still lost the war through shear attrition and some instant sunshine.
 
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