ChristianK
Banned
I am wondering if the nazis had any change of winning the war on easter front after the Kursk failure in summer 1943..
I am wondering if the nazis had any change of winning the war on easter front after the Kursk failure in summer 1943..
No. By that time the Nazi aura of invincibility was gone, the allies had agreed to a policy of unconditional surrender, and the Red Army had been moulded into a fit, modern war machine of unparalleled scale and power, which the remnants of the Wehrmacht, hampered by inferior leadership, inferior resources, inferior morale, inferior recruitment (by this point), inferior industry, and the horrific Final Solution, could not dream of opposing and defeating.
The Kriegsmarine by this time has been savaged by allied naval forces, and with the Mediterranean now firmly in Allied hands, it no longer even had any real strategic purpose.
The Luftwaffe was vastly outgunned and outnumbered by allied airpower.
Kurks was the last serious attempt by the Germans to seize the strategic initiative in the Eastern Front. There was no going back after its failure. If Heisenberg had gotten off the ground in 1943, Berlin would long be rubble before the Nazis could produce their first test. If the Eastern Front had been turned into a stalemate, Germany would be turned to atomic glass by the USA. Unless simultaneous meteors laced with anti-Slavic viruses wipe out every non-German on Earth, the Nazis are just plumb-out fucked.
The Germans could have formed the Russian Liberation Army and they possibly could have got it to a number around 500,000 men using second rate equipment. That would have surely slowed the Soviets down and possibly if the army would be deployed correctly it could save the Germans the Battle of the Dnieper. Also in the event of pockets such as the Courland pocket, the Germans should be ready to evacuate them. Not like OTL, where the Germans just let the men rot.
Another thing the Germans could have done was to completely change their tank production. All production on the Panzer III should have been stopped along with the early models of the Panzer IV. The late Panzer IV and Panther models should continue to be produced. Production on the Tiger tank should completely stop.
Also research on many wonder weapons such as the V-2 and V-3 should cease. All the money spent on building the V-2 could have been spent building up to 35,000 tanks, whether they had the material to build that many tanks is debatable. One wonder weapon that should have been massively deployed is the R4m rocket. Hitler didn't like the idea of this defensive weapon so it was never widely used. If it was, horrific casualties would have been inflicted on the Allied strategic bomber force.
To save oil, U-Boats should mostly return to port since after May 1943 they had basically seized to be a strategic nuisance.
This still isn't enough to stop the Soviet Union, but if the Germans are really lucky, maybe some compromse peace could be reached.
With the waste of resources in North Africa and at Stalingrad and then Kursk the Wehrmact no longer had the resources to win, or even hold.
Here is the alternative with Hitler: He allows Paulas
to break out and the 300,000 men there are saved.
no massive reinforcement of NA and that 300,000 men are saved for future use. Those troops move to Sicily and the Allies hesitate to attack such a huge experienced army in early 43.
A more measured and reasonable defense bleeds the Russian army more later in 42 and 43. The troops saved at Stalingrad and with the more reasonable defense are not used at Kursk but on Mansteins back handed slap to the russian offensive which costs ther Red Army 1 million casualties overall and makes Stalin hesitate about another offensive while at the same time shooting the commanders involved.
And all of this is predicated on Sorge being found out and removed early in 43.
WIthout Hitler:
Rommel after coming back early in 43 sees the Holocaust happening and decides he cannot condone it and organizes the Coup in march of 43 and unlike the keystone kops of Staufenberg and company he succeeds in Capturing Hitler, Goering and Himmler and disarms the SS and Gestapo. He asks for a ceasefire from the Allies to negotiate an armistice.
well outside of Stalingrad (and then we are talking about a couple of months at most) it is in 43.