German offer to the US in 1940

[McPherson]

The USN had actively sought to limit the size of its main competitors navies in Britain & Japan through the WNT & LNT, as well as sundering the Anglo-Japanese Treaty dead.

One major concern in 1940 was if Britain fell, what would happen to the major fleet units of the RN. There was a very real fear that it may be ceded or seized by Germany.

Now imagine the USA, by choice, approving to the handover of the RN to Hitler, thus leaving the Third Reich with a possible combination of the navies of Germany, France, Italy & Britain. Although probably the extreme situation, it would bring OTL Washington out in a cold sweat. And that's before the IJN are brought into the equation.

The USA had worldwide trading interests - look at the response to Japan's incursions into China. They would be worried not only at the potential loss of trade, but the threat any large navy would pose to their interests. They saw the RN - which, in their wildest moments, never contemplated an Anglo-American war - as such a rival: how do you think they would see a Kriegsmarine on steroids?

The German Kaiser's Secret Plan To Invade the U.S.

ONI found out about that one around 1906. How did it make the USN feel?

 

[Finbarr the Fair]

The German Kaiser's Secret Plan To Invade the U.S.

ONI found out about that one around 1906. How did it make the USN feel?

Given the way War Plans never die, just gather dust until updated and recycled... the US almost certainly considered Nazi Germany as capable of similar schemes.

And with the resources of Europe and the colonial territories of France etc. at the Nazis disposal. Plus a friendly USSR as a source of other materials and Japan as an ally....

Stopping Hitler controlling the British Empire was a primary goal of policy.

 

[Garrison]

Ok. I am kind of surprised by that answer since I never heard this before. I thought Hitlers economic policy was autarky, with foreign trade only when it is necessary and only in the german sphere of influence (e.g. Yugoslavia, Sweden). That it is also what I recently read on wikipedia (maybe not the best source) on the economics for the third reich where it stated Hitler was against foreign trade because in the 30s prices for raw materials were rising while those for machines were falling and foreign trade under these conditions would pour capital out of Germany which Hitler considered unacceptable.

As I said, you are getting answers here at AH which can at best only summarize events and Wikipedia is likewise nothing but a few paragraphs trying to summarize a complex situation. If you really want to understand the details you are going to have to turn to sources like 'Wages of Destruction' that spends around 800 pages explaining the Nazi economy and its relationship to their foreign policy and military decision making. If you don't want to make that sort of time commitment them I'm afraid you are just going to have accept the opinions of the other posters here because you really haven't offered any facts to refute them.

 

[Furthark]

The USN had actively sought to limit the size of its main competitors navies in Britain & Japan through the WNT & LNT, as well as sundering the Anglo-Japanese Treaty dead.

One major concern in 1940 was if Britain fell, what would happen to the major fleet units of the RN. There was a very real fear that it may be ceded or seized by Germany.

Now imagine the USA, by choice, approving to the handover of the RN to Hitler, thus leaving the Third Reich with a possible combination of the navies of Germany, France, Italy & Britain. Although probably the extreme situation, it would bring OTL Washington out in a cold sweat. And that's before the IJN are brought into the equation.

The USA had worldwide trading interests - look at the response to Japan's incursions into China. They would be worried not only at the potential loss of trade, but the threat any large navy would pose to their interests. They saw the RN - which, in their wildest moments, never contemplated an Anglo-American war - as such a rival: how do you think they would see a Kriegsmarine on steroids?

So the main issue with Germany was the possibility of Germany becoming a big naval power able to interfere with US trade?

 

[Coulsdon Eagle]

So the main issue with Germany was the possibility of Germany becoming a big naval power able to interfere with US trade?

I wouldn't say the main, but a factor.

 

[McPherson]

So the main issue with Germany was the possibility of Germany becoming a big naval power able to interfere with US trade?

No. The criminal regime in Berlin was an existential threat to a free United States. The only way that threat was going to be removed was at bayonet point and occupation and reeducation of the polity. Just what RTL happened. It may shock you to read this fact, but ANY other outcome given the metastasized politics of post Weimar Germany had to have that outcome, because the Berlin maniac could have been murdered and you would still have the same criminal mindset inside the ruling German political elites.

You had to discredit the whole rotten structure and the mindset that produced it.

 

[Crowbar Six]

And so your proof is one propaganda poster. Poland in 1939 was no threat to Germany and saying otherwise is just nonsense.

Pretty sure I never raised any Polish territorial threats to Germany or any of its neighbours. One thing to have ambitions and another to actually invade 3 independent countries despite international agreements, the only countries being hyper-aggressive was Germany and Italy. There were any number of territorial issues in Europe as a result of the Napoleonic wars and many more which were left unaddressed after the Treaty of Versailles none of which actually provided a justification to go to war.

 

[Furthark]

No. The criminal regime in Berlin was an existential threat to a free United States.

Could you be more specific? Threat in what way?

 

[Cymry-Korean]

Pretty sure I never raised any Polish territorial threats to Germany or any of its neighbours. One thing to have ambitions and another to actually invade 3 independent countries despite international agreements, the only countries being hyper-aggressive was Germany and Italy. There were any number of territorial issues in Europe as a result of the Napoleonic wars and many more which were left unaddressed after the Treaty of Versailles none of which actually provided a justification to go to war.

I think you're replying to the wrong person.

 

[McPherson]

Could you be more specific? Threat in what way?

1. Treaty breaking.
2. Violation of established international law.
3. Terrorism.

Now to be clear, the FDR letter was a demarche to the war criminal Hitler: that was a clear warning that the USG decided that the named nations were under the protection of the United States.

So; when those nations, one by one, were attacked and or conquered: that was; when their borders were violated, then what the HELL makes the United States exempt?

War was inevitable.

 

[Furthark]

1. Treaty breaking.
2. Violation of established international law.
3. Terrorism.

Now to be clear, the FDR letter was a demarche to the war criminal Hitler: that was a clear warning that the USG decided that the named nations were under the protection of the United States.

So; when those nations, one by one, were attacked and or conquered: that was; when their borders were violated, then what the HELL makes the United States exempt?

War was inevitable.

But how is this a threat to the US?

 

[McPherson]

But how is this a threat to the US?

This has been explained in DETAIL with incident and example. I am now convinced that further discussion in this thread is in effect spitting into the wind with those who refuse to make the connections and see the reasons why the threat was real to the world peace which was the ultimate defensive goal of any international law abiding nation. No-one was safe as long as the Berlin Criminal regime was in existence.

ENDIT.

 

[Furthark]

This has been explained in DETAIL with incident and example. I am now convinced that further discussion in this thread is in effect spitting into the wind with those who refuse to make the connections and see the reasons why the threat was real to the world peace which was the ultimate defensive goal of any international law abiding nation. No-one was safe as long as the Berlin Criminal regime was in existence.

ENDIT.

The point is there was no way Germany could seriously damage the US in any way at that time so they were pretty much safe in fact. The only argument could be that Germany could build a strong Navy in the long term, but you yourself rejected that in a previous post, so I really don't get your position.

 

[Crowbar Six]

I think you're replying to the wrong person.

Sorry, accidentally quote wrong person. It was directed to Furthark of course.

Could you be more specific? Threat in what way?

I think that has been explained in a number of posts in this thread. Long story short, NAZI Germany was a cancer that had to cut out. If it was allowed to gain a foothold in Western Europe sooner or later it was going to undermine the goals of the US Government and there will be a direct military confrontation with Germany either in Europe or on the beaches of New Jersey and Delaware.

 

[Finbarr the Fair]

The point is there was no way Germany could seriously damage the US in any way at that time so they were pretty much safe in fact. The only argument could be that Germany could build a strong Navy in the long term, but you yourself rejected that in a previous post, so I really don't get your position.

The point, as others have repeatedly stated, is that Nazi Germany had geopolitical goals that were incompatible with those of the US. That it was trying to build a power base that could threaten the US. Militarily and economically. It was a direct threat to American prosperity and security.

And it was a rogue state that could not be trusted.

Hence the perfectly rational, cold blooded reasoned, decision to support the British Commonwealth and Empire in 1940. While at the same time extracting long term benefits through destroying Imperial Preference and weakening British power post-war

Now, an interesting POD for the 1930s might be a more rational, right-wing authoritarian regime in Germany. Under say Von Papen backed by military figures. That type of regime might be able to renegotiate Versailles and regain some of the lost lands. Peacefully.

But that regime wouldn't start a world war either.

 

[Burton K Wheeler]

No. The criminal regime in Berlin was an existential threat to a free United States. The only way that threat was going to be removed was at bayonet point and occupation and reeducation of the polity. Just what RTL happened. It may shock you to read this fact, but ANY other outcome given the metastasized politics of post Weimar Germany had to have that outcome, because the Berlin maniac could have been murdered and you would still have the same criminal mindset inside the ruling German political elites.

You had to discredit the whole rotten structure and the mindset that produced it.

This is the fundamental Notzi problem. If you want to posit a Notzi regime that is just like OTL but not a genocidal death cult and therefore capable of acting rationally, you have to change literally every aspect of what the actual Nazi regime was, and then you have something very different from OTL. The most popular Notzi scenario is a military coup against Hitler that somehow magically makes all the other Nazis go away and turns the Kafkaesque hell circus of Nazi bureaucracy into a well-organized administrative state, but even this has the significant flaw that the Allies are not going to feel any less threatened by imperialist anti-Semitic thugs in feldgrau than they are by imperialist anti-Semitic thugs in black.

This particular thread makes the problem even worse by completely failing to understand the context of Hitler's early aggression. Aggression against Czechoslovakia and Poland was an indication of a country that is a threat to the balance of power in Europe. Even if that country wasn't ruled by a Jew-hating maniac who had been running concentration camps and murdering his own citizens from the beginning, the British and French will not tolerate a genocidal regime taking over half the continent, and the U.S. will back the British and French to the hilt. There is no way that the invasion of Poland does not trigger a global war (it was a near run thing that Czechoslovakia didn't), and no way that the U.S. stands by and lets Europe be conquered by any regime, especially one led by a Jew-hating madman.

@Furthark, you clearly don't have the first idea about the nature Nazi regime or the road to war. It's a bit eyebrow-raising for someone to be obtuse enough to act like Poland and Germany were somehow morally equivalent in 1939 and that Hitler's invasions of his neighbors were just part of normal geopolitics.

 

[King Augeas]

Could you be more specific? Threat in what way?

A Germany that has the resources and industry of Europe under its control can build a war machine capable of occupying the USSR and South America and strategically encircling , and then subjugating, the USA.

That's the nightmare scenario. It's also roughly the scenario, IIRC as described by Tooze, set out in Hitler's second book, which identifies the USA as "the home of international Jewry" and thus the ultimate target of Nazi Germany. It's likely that some people in FDR's administration had read this book and had taken it seriously. Hence the implacable hostility of the US to Germany.

Seriously, if you take one thing from this thread, read Tooze's The Wages of Destruction. It explains why the war took the course it did, why America saw Germany as an existential threat and why Germany's strategic position in July 1940, after Churchill had settled Britain's brief wobble, was nothing short of catastrophic - and why Germany was therefore forced into one desperate gamble after another, from the Battle of Britain (failed) to Barbarossa (also failed) and finally war with the US in an attempt to stem the flow of materiel across the Atlantic (also failed).

This is also worth a read, as it covers the sheer terror felt in the US upon the Fall of France and the desperate acts considered in order to forestall a feared Nazi invasion of South America, leading to the aforementioned strategic encirclement of the US.

 

[The Tai-Pan]

, but even this has the significant flaw that the Allies are not going to feel any less threatened by imperialist anti-Semitic thugs in feldgrau than they are by imperialist anti-Semitic thugs in black.

Considering how often the term 'Prussian militarism' was thrown around in OTL, a military coup might scare the Allies more. At least, before like 1943.

 

[Garrison]

In already read quite often that Hitler as well as Ribbentrop were shocked by the DOWs.
My main point is trying to understand why the US considered Germany the main enemy in 1940 already. The answers I got thus far are insufficient imho but maybe I am missing something.

And where did you read that? And forgive me for being blunt but yes, you are missing something. You've jumped in with a proposal that makes zero sense to anyone with a working knowledge of the politics of the era and you are rejecting the responses as inadequate because of your own lack of knowledge about the topic. To make matters worse some of your recent posts border on Nazi apologism.

 

[Belisarius II]

But didn't Barbarossa cost more in resources than it brought in? The soviets were supplying the Reich before the invasion already and the Germans never got to the Oil in the caucasus.
How would the lack of an alliance with Japan change allied strategy?

Barbarossa cost more then they got out of it because it was ultimately a failure. It's like saying the cost of the bank robbery was more then we got out of it, because the robbery failed. Japan's joining the Axis made securing an agreement with the United States harder. the Americans lost any trust they had in Japan's good motives. Saying you want peace, while forging an alliance with Hitler is completely inconsistent. The Axis was an alliance of nothing but bad actors. "Hey, I may be in the Mafia, but I'm a really good human being."