On May 1,1940, how long western campaign did Germany expect?

How long did Germany expect the war in the West to be on May 1, 1940?

  • 3 months

    Votes: 4 6.8%
  • 6 months

    Votes: 15 25.4%
  • 12-24 months

    Votes: 16 27.1%
  • More than two years

    Votes: 3 5.1%
  • Hitler expected a shorter war, General staff expected a longer war

    Votes: 21 35.6%
  • Hitler expected a longer war, General Staff a shorter war

    Votes: 0 0.0%

  • Total voters
    59
If I may ask, how specific do you really want the answer to be?

Surely the answer is well known and documented in the literature by now. To the extent that some people, including Hitler, were willing to place their faith in Manstein's and Guderian's plans, the war would be a short German victory. Otherwise, it would be a long, drawn-out repeat of World War I only with more devastating weapons, with a high likelihood of again leading to German exhaustion and defeat.

Possibly I'm just being coloured by my own biases here but I don't recall seeing any German political or military thinking anticipating a middle-of-the-road war, as it were. Either Germany achieves a rapid coup, or it grinds to a halt in a war of attrition.

Which of those two scenarios seems most likely depends on which particular Germans you're asking about and at what particular time and on exactly how long they think the attrition phase would last.

I'd refer again to Mays 'Strange Victory' which outlines the doubts of the senior German military leaders, & their eventual willingness to adopt what at the time was seen as a large risk on unproven methods. Horne, Chapman, Jackson among the serious English language historians of the campaign saw the same judgement among the German leaders. The thinking of Halder and Hitler boiled down to: 'We are in a really bad long term situation, gambling on a long shot is the thing to as we cant see any other way forward.' Hitler in this was his usual intuitive mercurial self, Halder a rational conclusion after 6+ months of extensive analysis and testing of options. The rest of the lot were persuaded to support the gamble because they had nothing to offer that looked like long term success.

As dysfunctional & corrupt as the nazi regime was, the senior nazis as well as the senior military men realized the numbers ran against Germany, and ran faster than in 1914-1918. While the Brits a French only had 2-3 years of financial reserves Germany had next to none. The modification of the Nuetrality Acts in the US and the implementation of the Cash and Carry policy meant the Allies had access to the raw materials and industrial power of the US for at least two years. Conversely the pact with the USSR linked Germany to a much less efficient and productive industrial power, and to a nation that was likely to cut the trade or execute a stab in the back. Alone the industrial trends in France and Britain combined promised to outrun Germany in key sectors, like ammunition, aircraft, automotive, production. Despite rhetoric about the Americans being able to only build razor blades and refrigerators the German leaders understood that the Allied/US industrial plant dwarfed the German/Soviet plant plus and combination of minor Facist fellow travelers. Seperately the German leaders and French economist calculated the relative growth in power. They came to the same conclusion, that if Germany could not decisively defeat France in a early battle then strategic defeat would follow in about two years.

This cold equation led to a cold gamblers long shot on the part of Halder, who nursed the waffling Hitler through the key days of decision in the battle.
 
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