Hitler starts World War II three years late

Britain declared war on Germany in 1939 because they could not continue the pace of rearmament without emergency powers...that was 1939..how they supposed to continue rearmament through 1942 without emergency powers to finance all this?
What is the cite for this?
 
[QUOTE="Justinian]The Germans will still command a massive advantage in quality from continuing armaments production as well as from their superior officers, better trained soldiers and more adept general staff. Germany would still end up trouncing France.[/QUOTE]

And then the fully armed and operational red army eats the hitlerites!
 
[QUOTE="Justinian]The Germans will still command a massive advantage in quality from continuing armaments production as well as from their superior officers, better trained soldiers and more adept general staff. Germany would still end up trouncing France.

And then the fully armed and operational red army eats the hitlerites![/QUOTE]


what fully armed & operational red army?
 
And then the fully armed and operational red army eats the hitlerites!


what fully armed & operational red army?[/QUOTE]
What, you think the Red Army doesn't continue to rearm and modernize, while Germany does?

Again, this is another ATL where the Germans get to do everything right, and everyone else sucks and dies.
 
what fully armed & operational red army?
What, you think the Red Army doesn't continue to rearm and modernize, while Germany does?

Again, this is another ATL where the Germans get to do everything right, and everyone else sucks and dies.[/QUOTE]


Pretty much since Germans had been mentally preparing for war since the late 1920s, when Germans accepted that only a war could get Germany out of its 'situation'.

https://books.google.ca/books?id=YRRqDAAAQBAJ&pg=PA53&lpg=PA53&dq=britain+could+not+afford+rearmament+in+1939&source=bl&ots=PilRJRMIBV&sig=8rK6_wBZesZzIZo46ll9IwKiWXk&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjIh-3a9L7UAhVC6mMKHUOIAAYQ6AEINjAD#v=onepage&q=britain could not afford rearmament in 1939&f=false


All the other countries including America were running away from the inevitable clash. They may have been rearming for war, but were not ready.
 
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NoMommsen

Donor
Way is your cite for this?
Hitlers memo regarding the 4-year-plan of 1936
- "The german army has to operational in 4 years
- "The german economy has to ear-ready in 4 years."
... and the consequtive decisions taken against Hjalmar Schachts advices

The Hossbach Memorandum of 1937

Hitlers dissapointment, when Chamberlain agreed to the Munich treaty, depriving him of a war against czechoslovakia in 1938

... just to name a few.
 
Since the Allied rearmament is such a big deal, could Hitler demobilize the army until, say, late 1942 to lull the Allies into a sense of security, or would that be a fool's errand?
 
I see the old "France as just waiting to surrender" trope is still alive and well. For a bunch of surrender monkeys there sure were lots of French units that fought valiantly even after it was clear the German units had broken French defenses.

Let's see, if it would take decades to shake off the effects of Stalin's purges, then how did the Soviet military recover so quickly in the midst of a shooting war while suffering huge losses of men and material?

If Germany defaults, how would she maintain a full bore rearmament? She can't buy stuff on credit if she defaults and Germany was very dependant on the world market for things like oil, rubber, chromium just to name a few. Take away her ability to pay and rearmament crashes to a halt.
 
Britain declared war on Germany in 1939 because they could not continue the pace of rearmament without emergency powers...that was 1939..how they supposed to continue rearmament through 1942 without emergency powers to finance all this?
That's the nice thing about having no written constitution - you can do little things like introducing emergency powers without a declaration of war, provided you can get a majority in Parliament and keep the King on side. If you just need money, that's unlikely to be a major problem.
 
Since the Allied rearmament is such a big deal, could Hitler demobilize the army until, say, late 1942 to lull the Allies into a sense of security, or would that be a fool's errand?
Problem is that it wouldn't be a false sense of security, it would be a true sense of security! In any case, the British and French economies would be likely to continue recovering from the depression while Germany starts to experience major problems due to excessive debt an funny money (MEFO bills? Can't quite remember the acronym) - so things get worse for Germany. It was really 1939 or never.
 
Britain declared war on Germany in 1939 because they could not continue the pace of rearmament without emergency powers...that was 1939..how they supposed to continue rearmament through 1942 without emergency powers to finance all this?

likewise the malaise that afflicted the French took decades to take root, it could not be reversed in a matter of years. Likewise the damage to the Soviet Moral from purges and decades of abuse could not be overcome in a matter of years....it would take a decade or more.

Without knowing about the British situation, although that sounds like nonsense, the French situation and economic malaise came about due to specific situations in the 1930s which the French were due to their political and economic situation poorly equipped to respond to - although their decline in the initial period of the Great Depression was less than other nations. French politics had produced a stalemate situation which made direction action about economic matters à la New Deal and the like difficult, while the solution which proved the way for the British out, easy monetary policy and devaluation, was off-limits politically due to the fallout of the 1927 French devaluation which had undermined confidence in government. The French bourgeois were unwilling to accept another devaluation, but the Popular Front brought one through in 1936, and further deflations would follow this. The un-competitive nature of the French economy had been fixed as a result, and the French industrial index had surpassed the 1929 one by 1939, with growth continuing. With the world economics situation emerging out of the depression, the French economy will be able to assume its regular role throughout much of the 19th and early 20th century; unremarkable but steady growth. People generally contrast this negatively to other nations, but French economic growth in GDP per capita largely kept up with their European competitors, the main difference was that their European competitors were also growing quickly in population which made their GDP growth look much more impressive.

Furthermore, while the problems that led to the 1930s were a long-time in coming, it must also be added that French economic performance was not always poor in the first part of the 20th century; the 1920s were a period of excellent economic growth in France which had seen the French economy outpace the German economy in economic growth.

Of course, it is impossible for the French economy to challenge their German equivalents in economic sizes, as the Germans had grown to around twice the French population and had control over an economy, which due to resource alignment, was naturally more capable of supporting heavy industry. But the French economy was looking up in the late 1930s, and while there were as always worries about the debts from re-armament, they were absolutely nothing compared to the disastrous situation across the border. And unlike Germany, France still has the largest gold reserves in the world to finance its re-armament...

Additionally, while the French economy had problems that were structural, such as its dependence on small peasant cultivators for agriculture, the German economy was largely the same.

Similarly concerning the Soviets, the Soviets don't need to perfectly heal all of the problems that the purges brought, they just need to recover to a sufficient extent to outdo their 1941 baseline. This is not terribly difficult, and by 1942, under peace-time conditions, the Soviet Union would be far on its way to dealing with this. Another large reason for Soviet failures in 1941 was Soviet logistics, but these would be much better for supplying their forces in most any other hypothetical war with the Nazis.
 
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They get crushed. By mid-'39, Germany's mobilization program was plateauing and starting to threaten Germany with economic collapse while the Anglo-French were just starting to hit their stride and the Soviets were starting to wind down the purges. By '43, the reformed and rearmed British, French, and Soviet military's would be more then adequate to destroy the Axis.

How was Germany's mobilization program threatening their economy?
 
How was Germany's mobilization program threatening their economy?
Essentially they were paying for it with funny money, and could only stave off reality for a limited period of time. By late 1939 they had run out of options - they had to either seize resources using the army they had, or cut back drastically and accept a serious recession (which the Nazi party would probably not survive) and the loss of most of their military capability. Wages of Destruction really is required reading here.
 

ATP45

Banned
I agree. Even the Poles already started modernizing their army with some quite good equipment - new planes, tanks, artillery; German technological advantage over Poland might not be so big in 1942.
Sadly,that is not true.German planned 10.000 strong Luftwaffe mainly with Ju88 and Me109,when Poland would have only 700 planes.14:1 advantage.
In OTL,Poland had 315 planes,when germans use against them some 2.000.Only 6:1 advantage.
 
Without the outbreak of war why would the reservists be mobilized? If anything the lack of war would have brought in an atmosphere of calm to Europe.

I did not say they would be. The remedial training programs were in place mobilisation or not. It was part of the overall rearmament program.

Calm was the last thing that would return to French leadership. Between the Anschluss & the Czech crisis the French leadership realised containment of Germany was no longer a viable long term policy. That actual destruction of a expansionist Germany was necessary in the near future.
 
I did not say they would be. The remedial training programs were in place mobilisation or not. It was part of the overall rearmament program.

Calm was the last thing that would return to French leadership. Between the Anschluss & the Czech crisis the French leadership realised containment of Germany was no longer a viable long term policy. That actual destruction of a expansionist Germany was necessary in the near future.

Considering the pattern of scandal, resignation and new elections as well as the corrupt French political complex it's doubtful the French government could have kept it's position like that in a meaningful way. The German troops they'll be facing will be battle hardened from Poland, well equipped and certainly better trained than the majority of the French. The Luftwaffe would certainly be strong by an order of magnitude than the French.
 
The worst of the French General were due to retire, they'd be sipping wine in the country when the fighting started in 42/43.
France would be a far tougher opponent.
 
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