The worst mistakes made by the Axis

What are the worst mistakes made by the Axis

  • Hitler's underestimation of Sea power

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • The inability of the Axis to get Spain and Turkey into the Fight

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • Italy and Japan unable to fully upgrade it's tanks to match the Allies

    Votes: 0 0.0%

  • Total voters
    132
Hitler did not understand, likely due to his spotty education, that historically Britain had never allowed anybody to assume preeminence on the continent and that it would go to whatever length it might be requiered (even committing imperial suicide) to prevent anybody to attaining this status.

Hitler should have made a serious anti-british alliance with Soviet Union (perfectly doable, almost happended IOTL) and crush Britain into submission before thinking of anything else.

I'm with you on this one... should have gone Britain first.
 
I voted Barbossa. But the real nail in the coffin was the USA having internationalist like Franklin Roosevelt as president. With him it was inevitable that eventually Germany would come into conflict with the U.S. And be smacked down. Getting a ardent isolationist into office is the only way for the axis to survive.
 
I would say none of those.

IMO the second big mistake was blatantly breaking the Munich agreement. This was the last straw that committed Britain and France to fight Germany. It was Phyrric victory. Germany should have continued its policy of making "rightful" demands Saar, Rhineland, Anglo German naval agreement, Austria and in a way the Sudeten were all "justifyable" in an international context. Danzig and maybe even the corridor could have been eventually achieved without alienating the Western powers.

The first mistake was to go after the jews ... Most 99%+ felt German and were also angered by Versailles...

But I assume the nazis would not have been the nazis if they had acted coherently...
 

LordKalvert

Banned
I voted Barbarossa because Dunkirk is not listed.

Barbarossa isn't a mistake. Hitler and Stalin probably both understood that war between the two of them was inevitable. Stalin didn't think Hitler would attack until he had finished off Britain- which would give Stalin time to build up his forces

Hitler's decision to strike first makes a lot of sense from a military point of view. There are things that Hitler could have done to improve his performance during Barbarossa- stripping the occupation forces in France and Norway for example or taking Leningrad before her defenses are ready
The biggest mistake is not realizing that to bring down the Soviets he would need a collapse from within- a "we've come to liberate you from the Jewish cabal that is Marxism" would have been in keeping with both Hitler's own racist ideology and traditional Russian attitudes

A defeat of the Soviets in 1941 is possible. Coupled with a disavowal of Japan's actions in the Pacific and relatively mild peace terms towards the British, Hitler could have survived
 
Barbarossa isn't a mistake. Hitler and Stalin probably both understood that war between the two of them was inevitable. Stalin didn't think Hitler would attack until he had finished off Britain- which would give Stalin time to build up his forces

Hitler's decision to strike first makes a lot of sense from a military point of view. There are things that Hitler could have done to improve his performance during Barbarossa- stripping the occupation forces in France and Norway for example or taking Leningrad before her defenses are ready
The biggest mistake is not realizing that to bring down the Soviets he would need a collapse from within- a "we've come to liberate you from the Jewish cabal that is Marxism" would have been in keeping with both Hitler's own racist ideology and traditional Russian attitudes

A defeat of the Soviets in 1941 is possible. Coupled with a disavowal of Japan's actions in the Pacific and relatively mild peace terms towards the British, Hitler could have survived

Voted for Hitler's declaration of war on the US.

In purely military terms, you could easily make the case for Barbarossa but that ignores that the invasion of the USSR was always Hitler's endgame; it was what the war was about. As such, it can't be a mistake. The timing, the relative priority, the execution and so on, yes, certainly mistakes were made but the decision itself was inevitable as soon as Hitler's position in Germany was secure, assassinations apart.

By contrast, his declaration of war on the US was both completely pointless and massively counterproductive.

True, the US was assisting the UK and Soviets but by nothing like as much as they would once they cam in in earnest - and the Japanese attack would, but for Hitler's absurd blunder, have focussed their attention in the Pacific. How much harder for Roosevelt to get Congress to take Germany seriously when the US now had its own war? It's not even as if there was any meaningful Axis Grand Strategy, unlike that which the Allies were able to develop (again, to Hitler's cost).

How do you assess the worst mistake? To me, it has to be a combination of consequence and faulty rationale. A badly executed plan is one thing but you can, to some extent, excuse a fiasco that might have paid off had the dice come down differently. Declaring war on the biggest industrial power in the world, while already stretched to and perhaps beyond capacity, unprovoked and with no obvious gain to be had? Incomprehensible.
 

Deleted member 1487

Probably Barbarossa all things considered. Allying with Stalin instead gets Britain out of the war by the end of 1941 and keeps the US from entering, even if Stalin has no intention of honoring the Axis pact. With the war with Britain over by the end of 1941 and a 10 year deal with the Axis and Soviets there really isn't cause for war to start again and the Nazis, assuming they don't pull some stupid shit, can rule continental Europe as long as they don't fuck up the economy worse than the USSR.
 
Voted for Hitler's declaration of war on the US.]

True, the US was assisting the UK and Soviets but by nothing like as much as they would once they cam in in earnest - and the Japanese attack would, but for Hitler's absurd blunder, have focussed their attention in the Pacific. How much harder for Roosevelt to get Congress to take Germany seriously when the US now had its own war? It's not even as if there was any meaningful Axis Grand Strategy, unlike that which the Allies were able to develop (again, to Hitler's cost).
This would be my second worst mistake. The USA was already at war with Germany. It just had not been formally declared.

I voted for Pearl Harbour. The Japanese knew that if they did not get a quick knock out the larger US economy would stomp them into the ground. So they tried a quick knock out, but did not finish the job properly. Result: they got stomped into the ground.

At least Hitler had an alibi in that he thought that he would win. OK, so he was delusional, but at least he could plead ignorance.;)
 
Barbarossa isn't a mistake. Hitler and Stalin probably both understood that war between the two of them was inevitable. Stalin didn't think Hitler would attack until he had finished off Britain- which would give Stalin time to build up his forces

When i say mistake i mean the way Barbarossa was executed, of course it could be done better and not talking of a mistake now.

But for me, not beating the BEF in Dunkirk, and letting them escape with all assets and experience, thats a big one.
 
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By contrast, his declaration of war on the US was both completely pointless and massively counterproductive.

True, the US was assisting the UK and Soviets but by nothing like as much as they would once they cam in in earnest - and the Japanese attack would, but for Hitler's absurd blunder, have focussed their attention in the Pacific. How much harder for Roosevelt to get Congress to take Germany seriously when the US now had its own war? It's not even as if there was any meaningful Axis Grand Strategy, unlike that which the Allies were able to develop (again, to Hitler's cost).

There wasn't an Axis grand strategy, but FDR was busy telling everyone that there was.

The course that Japan has followed for the past ten years in Asia has paralleled the course of Hitler and Mussolini in Europe and in Africa. Today, it has become far more than a parallel. It is actual collaboration so well calculated that all the continents of the world, and all the oceans, are now considered by the Axis strategists as one gigantic battlefield. In 1931, ten years ago, Japan invaded Manchukuo—without warning.
In 1935, Italy invaded Ethiopia—without warning.
In 1938, Hitler occupied Austria —without warning.
In 1939, Hitler invaded Czechoslovakia- without warning.
Later in 1939, Hitler invaded Poland- without warning.
In 1940, Hitler invaded Norway, Denmark, the Netherlands, Belgium, and Luxembourg- without warning.
In 1940, Italy attacked France and later Greece—without warning.
And this year, in 1941, the Axis powers attacked Yugoslavia and Greece and they dominated the Balkans—without warning. In 1941, also, Hitler invaded Russia—without warning.
And now Japan has attacked Malaya and Thailand—and the United States—without warning.
It is all of one pattern.

Your Government knows that for weeks Germany has been telling Japan that if Japan did not attack the United States, Japan would not share in dividing the spoils with Germany when peace came. She was promised by Germany that if she came in she would receive the complete and perpetual control of the whole of the Pacific area—and that means not only the Far East, but also all of the islands in the Pacific, and also a stranglehold on the west coast of North, Central, and South America.

We know also that Germany and Japan are conducting their military and naval operations in accordance with a joint plan. That plan considers all peoples and Nations which are not helping the Axis powers as common enemies of each and every one of the Axis powers.

That is their simple and obvious grand strategy. And that is why the American people must realize that it can be matched only with similar grand strategy. We must realize for example that Japanese successes against the United States in the Pacific are helpful to German operations in Libya; that any German success against the Caucasus is inevitably an assistance to Japan in her operations against the Dutch East Indies; that a German attack against Algiers or Morocco opens the way to a German attack against South America, and the Canal.

On the other side of the picture, we must learn also to know that guerrilla warfare against the Germans in, let us say, Serbia or Norway helps us; that a successful Russian offensive against the Germans helps us; and that British successes on land or sea in any part of the world strengthen our hands.

Remember always that Germany and Italy, regardless of any formal declaration of war, consider themselves at war with the United States at this moment just as much as they consider themselves at war with Britain or Russia. And Germany puts all the other Republics of the Americas into the same category of enemies. The people of our sister Republics of this hemisphere can 'be honored by that fact.
Interviewing Date 12/12-17/41
Survey #255 Question #6
Which country is the greater threat to America's future — Germany or Japan?
Germany........................... 64%
Japan.............................. 15
Equal threats........................ 15
No opinion......................... 6
The idea that the US would just ignore Germany is just so stupid.

Not going to war means defeat in the Battle of the Atlantic and the failure of the strategy to force the UK from the war. Going to war inflicted six months of severe damage to the weak link in US power - shipping, the ability of the US to project power.

Just because it failed doesn't mean that it was the wrong strategy.
 
The idea that the US would just ignore Germany [if Germany didn't declare war] is just so stupid.

Not going to war means defeat in the Battle of the Atlantic and the failure of the strategy to force the UK from the war. Going to war inflicted six months of severe damage to the weak link in US power - shipping, the ability of the US to project power.

Just because it failed doesn't mean that it was the wrong strategy.

I don't think anyone's suggesting that the US would entirely ignore Germany but without the German declaration of war, it's highly unlikely that the US would have declared war on Germany when it did. For all that it was effectively in a state of advanced non-belligerency against Germany by late 1941, that was still some way short of full-on war.

Perhaps even if war had been declared some time in 1942 or 1943 things would have panned out relatively similarly anyway: the US couldn't deploy massive power until around then anyway as it had to convert to a war economy and train and equip an army - which it would have been doing anyway if at war against Japan. All the same, priority couldn't be given to the fight against Germany if the US wasn't at war against it and it was already in an all-out fight with Japan. It was the Hitler's declaration that made the Allied Grand Strategy possible.

I take the point about the Atlantic but the war in Europe was always going to be won or lost in the east. Britain, though not insignificant, was a distraction rather than the main fight.
 
One thing not mentioned as the biggest mistake- the Holocaust. This required massive amounts of manpower and resources for building and then maintaining the camps, manning the camps with guards, railroads and rolling stock to and from the camps, etc. And what do you get as ROI (Return on Investment) from having the Holocaust?

A Jewish folklore explanation for the Holocaust that I've heard from a Rabbi is- G-d sacrificed his own people in return for stopping Hitler, that if the Holocaust had not occurred then Hitler would have had the ability to win the war and conquer the globe. Obviously, this is getting metaphysical and a religion trying to come to grasp with why a G-d would allow bad things to happen. But could there be a grain of truth in that if the Holocaust didn't happen that Hitler could have won?
 
All the same, priority couldn't be given to the fight against Germany if the US wasn't at war against it and it was already in an all-out fight with Japan. It was the Hitler's declaration that made the Allied Grand Strategy possible.

Allied Grand Strategy had actually been decided months before Pearl Harbour happened, at the very first ABC conference in March 1941. Germany First was thus official policy before US entry into the war.

I take the point about the Atlantic but the war in Europe was always going to be won or lost in the east.
And whether the US DoWs at the end of 1941 versus first half of 1942 (and that will be the latest, because Hitler isn't going to refrain from torpedoing American ships thereby focusing the US public's rage over Pearl Harbour on Germany) won't change that. It won't even change lend-lease priorities, as that was largely excess war production anyways.

No. Whilst the Holocaust tied up trains and manpower on an unproductive activity it did not really impact tank, aircraft, U Boat, etc production.

If anything, it would have harmed the German war effort. The death camps served a disturbingly practical purpose: the Reich faced very real food crisis after 1942, which could have crippled it had it not settled on the solution of killing large numbers of conquered peoples. The extermination of the Polish Jewry for example was not just an ideological insanity - it also had the practical effect of freeing up large amounts of food for the German war machine, which would have otherwise been faced with famine. The brutality of the Nazi policies often hides the threadbare shoestring Germany waged WWII on. Germany was in terrible economic shape at the start of the war, and carried it through only by exporting much of the hardships onto its victims. Had Germany ACTUALLY tried to feed all its conquered citizens, it would have collapsed years earlier.

There really is no room for the old wargamer's fantasy of massive increases in German productivity if only the Nazis had been "nice".
 
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