Germany mistakes

What were the main mistakes of Nazi Germany that caused them those war such as invasion of Russia and miracle of Dunkirk?
 

Khanzeer

Banned
Going to war with British empire

Contrary to popular belief British empire could survive multiple losses like dunkirk and withstand multiple air assaults like " battle of Britain " .Postwar british propaganda sensationalized it to epic proportions.

Makes good movies but far from reality.
 
Going to war with Poland without finding a way to keep France and Britain from getting involved made defeat almost inevitable, for Kahnzeer's reason; the British empire was not really a foe they could handle. All of their subsequent mistakes are tiny by comparison, and even eliminating all of them and having Germany go perfectly mistake free after invading Poland probably only gives them a slim hope. Some view the invasion of the Soviet Union as a mistake, but unless you gift Germany with magical diplomacy that can make Stalin a genuine ally (in which case these magical diplomats could surely have convinced the UK either to let Poland go or to make peace after the fall of France), Barbarossa was the only hope for Germany to get resources without which they would eventually be unable to continue their war against the UK. And even if Germany does everything perfectly up to summer of 1941, they probably only get a tiny bit further before overstretched supply lines and worsening weather stall the offensive. If getting a tiny bit further means Stalin gives up or is removed and replaced by someone willing to give up, then Germany has a chance. If not, then unless Japan is also smarter (and you asked specifically what Germany alone could do), U.S. enters the war, and subsequent events go down as in our timeline, with the German collapse at best coming a tiny bit more slowly.

Which makes it sound like the real question is what if they don't invade Poland? And the answer to that is that if Germany doesn't go to war at that point, over time Nazi mismanagement of the economy catches up with them, and they're in a steadily worse position to try anything the longer they wait. But if we're imagining a mistake-free Germany, I suppose they could decide not to invade Poland, scale back further military expansion, and clean up the civilian economy. But that would be pretty close to saying the big mistake of Nazi Germany was being Nazi. Which, while true, doesn't seem to be the intent of your question.
 
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IMO, taking for granted that you want them to win...

1: Not destroying the BEF

2: Don’t invade the Soviet Union until Britain is removed from the war. It will probably fail and leave you more over extended and vulnerable to the Soviets, but you could try to fight Britain in the Middle East with an invasion of Turkey which Britain thought could work.

3: Invading Scandinavia wasted manpower, got bad PR, and could have caused Britain to damage its own reputation if it invades Scandinavia instead. Use minimal submarine warfare. No Battle of Britain. Don’t invade the Balkans. Don’t declare war on America. Condemn Pearl Harbor. I combine all of these things together because America is rightfully not going to like Germany no matter what here, and no one thing can keep the US neutral. Even all of them combined probably won’t keep America neutral. But maybe if you combine all of them there is a chance of keeping America out.

4: If you do invade the Soviet Union, use everything you have including withdrawing direct military help towards Italy.


Outside of one, pretty much everything here has things that contradict each other. That’s probably because Germany isn’t strong enough relative to its opponents to pursue multiple strategies. And none of these are likely to work either.
 
Outside of one, pretty much everything here has things that contradict each other. That’s probably because Germany isn’t strong enough relative to its opponents to pursue multiple strategies. And none of these are likely to work either.

Exactly.
I'd add that #1 assumes they could.
 
Invading Scandinavia wasted manpower, got bad PR, and could have caused Britain to damage its own reputation if it invades Scandinavia instead. Use minimal submarine warfare. No Battle of Britain.

Deciding for a no go at the last minute (which seems implicit if you expect the Anglo-french to land as per OTL) is not such a good idea.

Yes, the Allies get bad PR, especially if Norway puts up at least a token resistance (which is likely). But it's not as if Britain wouldn't stomach that, see under Iceland, Finland, Iraq, Iran.

By letting the Allies in Norway, the Germans have better chances of winning in France, but then? They don't receive Swedish iron ore during the winter months. And with the Allies just beyond the border, the Swedish general stance changes dramatically; at the very least, they're still neutral but much less friendly to Germany. As an intermediate outcome, they sell their iron to the Allies! And at worst, they are strong-armed into declaring war on Germany.

Minimal submarine warfare? Yeah, by letting the Allies bottle you up in the Bight you are essentially giving up the Battle of the Atlantic, with all that that entails in saved resources for the Allies. Surface raiders also have scant chances of breaking out in the oceans. No Pinguin in the Pacific, etc.

No Battle of Britain? Well, no, but you'll have an air Battle of Denmark, whether you want it or not. You'll have to invade Denmark anyway just to buy a thin air buffer, and then your fighters and the British fighters will be very comfortably in each other's range. It's a battle you can win, unlike the Battle of Britain, but not without a cost. or you can leave Denmark alone, but the air battle will be on either sides of it - or the British will violate that neutral air space and hit you anyway.

And eventually, once you achieve air superiority over Southern Norway - which you must do if you don't want light bomber missions hitting Hamburg early on - you'll probably decide that you need boots on the ground there anyway, to prevent the enemy from building up their air strength there again. Which kills the supposed advantage of not wasting manpower there.

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Alternately, you might not build up to the unavoidable decision of Weserübung. Then no Altmark, no City of Flint, no provocations, no neutrality violations, and in general no using the Norwegian coastal waters as a comfortable risk-free highway to the Atlantic. You are largely giving up the Battle of the Atlantic, both with surface raiders and submarines. Yes, if you behave in that way, it's more unlikely that the Allies want Norway. You have the hope, not the certainty, that the enemy won't land there.
 
Not giving the Kreigsmarine the time it needed to fully prepare itself for war. Plan Z, in which 230 new ships (including four aircraft carriers) were to be constructed, was begun in 1938 and was not expected oeb completed until 1948. Hitler even promised Erich Rader that he would not start the war until that year.

Out of that many ships to be built, only 82 were finished. Hitler further hampered the Kriegsmarine by placing a emphasis on the construction of U-Boats after the failure of the German surface fleet to destroy a British convoy fleet in December 1942. Raeder got lucky in the latter regard. Hitler wanted the whole surface fleet to be scrapped, but Raeder changed his mind before resigning and handing the reins over to Karl Doenitz.
 
Not giving the Kreigsmarine the time it needed to fully prepare itself for war. Plan Z, in which 230 new ships (including four aircraft carriers) were to be constructed, was begun in 1938 and was not expected oeb completed until 1948. Hitler even promised Erich Rader that he would not start the war until that year.
By 48 the other army's (especially French, British and Soviet) have completed rearmament and you cant even win the BoF...... (and you run out of cash in early 40s anyway.....)
 
Not giving the Kreigsmarine the time it needed to fully prepare itself for war. Plan Z, in which 230 new ships (including four aircraft carriers) were to be constructed, was begun in 1938 and was not expected oeb completed until 1948.

Out of that many ships to be built, only 82 were finished. Hitler further hampered the Kriegsmarine by placing a emphasis on the construction of U-Boats after the failure of the German surface fleet to destroy a British convoy fleet in December 1942.

so repeating the mistakes of WWI with less resources? they needed a more coherent KM not the patchwork historical fleet.

you need a foundation for a house, a rainy day fund as start to savings program? thus the KM needed to start with their planned class of minelayers (half of which were to also serve as training ships) and a large u-boat flotilla first.
 
By 48 the other army's (especially French, British and Soviet) have completed rearmament and you cant even win the BoF...... (and you run out of cash in early 40s anyway.....)

Hitler didn't have to wait until 1948, exactly, but had he waited until 1940-1941, he could've had at least one aircraft carrier (The Graf Zeppelin) which was 85% complete in 1939. As long as it is protected by U-Boats, it could've had a long career.

Also, I never understood that. How exactly would Germany have run out of money by the early '40s?

you need a foundation for a house, a rainy day fund as start to savings program? thus the KM needed to start with their planned class of minelayers (half of which were to also serve as training ships) and a large u-boat flotilla first.

The British found a way around German mines during the Phoney War, so I don't see how much help more minelayers would've been. I do agree with the U-Boat flotilla though.
 
Hitler didn't have to wait until 1948, exactly, but had he waited until 1940-1941, he could've had at least one aircraft carrier (The Graf Zeppelin) which was 85% complete in 1939. As long as it is protected by U-Boats, it could've had a long career.
Errrrrr....
1) yes maybe one badly optimized hull with no ability to use it, just look at how long working up airwings and deck crews takes for USN/RN/IJN with no knowledge of how to do it....?
2) uboats are not escorting any CV unless you stand virtually still (Uboats are far to slow) or sit back in Baltic (and then you might as well land base).....?
3) What early war CV had long career, especially one that will have to fight its way out past RN and land based air......?
Also, I never understood that. How exactly would Germany have run out of money by the early '40s?
Without the early conquests they run out of the ability to pay for anything aboard except for by barter (at the same time as GB/FR are reaming at a high rate with World/US trade/industry) and they also cant pay back internal loans making them even more popular at home.
 

BooNZ

Banned
Going to war with British empire

Contrary to popular belief British empire could survive multiple losses like dunkirk and withstand multiple air assaults like " battle of Britain " .Postwar british propaganda sensationalized it to epic proportions.

Makes good movies but far from reality.
Britain was actually broke by the end of 1940 and would have been out of the war without FDR repackaging/ rebranding US neutrality to resemble beligerence. So perhaps not selling itself in a PR campaign in the Anglo-German war?
 
Britain was actually broke by the end of 1940 and would have been out of the war without FDR repackaging/ rebranding US neutrality to resemble beligerence. So perhaps not selling itself in a PR campaign in the Anglo-German war?

30% of the world economy cant 'go broke' it just cant pay for things in USD. Which are only legal tender inside the US.
 
Not giving the Kreigsmarine the time it needed to fully prepare itself for war. Plan Z, in which 230 new ships (including four aircraft carriers) were to be constructed, was begun in 1938 and was not expected oeb completed until 1948. Hitler even promised Erich Rader that he would not start the war until that year.

You sure they'd find the money for that huge plan? And naturally, they wouldn't build tanks and all that sort of other stuff?
 
You sure they'd find the money for that huge plan? And naturally, they wouldn't build tanks and all that sort of other stuff?

I'm not expecting Plan Z to be 100% completed, but Plan Z should've been put into some form of great effect before the war started. To answer your second question, yeah, I see some kind of competition between the Heer and the Kreigsmarine and yeah, Hitler would probably favour the Heer, but if something happens to Raeder during this prolonged peace and Donitz (a man who effectively worshipped Hitler) is put in charge, then I see Hitler taking more notice of the Kreigsmarine.
 
I'm not expecting Plan Z to be 100% completed, but Plan Z should've been put into some form of great effect before the war started. To answer your second question, yeah, I see some kind of competition between the Heer and the Kreigsmarine and yeah, Hitler would probably favour the Heer, but if something happens to Raeder during this prolonged peace and Donitz (a man who effectively worshipped Hitler) is put in charge, then I see Hitler taking more notice of the Kreigsmarine.

What you're forgetting is that the Allies would've also had time to expand their fleets and armies.
Add 5 years and the French army could have entirely different leadership.
 

BooNZ

Banned
A recurring mistake. Being short on dollars is not the same thing as being "broke", of course.
It was more of a feature of the British global empire - Britain was well situated and equiped to manage a global empire, but the same set-up was not well suited to large scale mass destruction on the continent. If you don't have the shipping available to essentially access your assets from around the globe, then you need to have the currency/transferable wealth then enables you to access resources from where you can. By the end of 1940, Britain no longer had sufficient acceptable currency to access resources to continue the war on ordinary terms. By comparison, companies with ample assets are frequently forced into liquidation because those are unable to pay debts on a timely basis due to liquidity issues.
30% of the world economy cant 'go broke' it just cant pay for things in USD. Which are only legal tender inside the US.
Britain can't pay for things it needs to continue the war and it does not have the shipping resources to substitute such things - for the purposes of fighting a war, they are broke.
 

JSchafer

Banned
Lack of unified axis command structure and working together. They behaved more like strangers moving in vaguely same directions than allies. Italy jumping in at worst possible moment. Canaris and co working with the allies. Enigma and espionage networks being broken but relied on. Japan attacking US. Soviet attack had to happen due to oil.
 
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