Weird 1940 thought 2

Had Hitler decided early on that he wanted to take on Britain could he have pulled it off.

Suppose the offensive caried on against Dunkirk so that most UK and French forces were captued.

Suppose an airborn attack had taken an East Coast port and the Nazis had taken a huge gamble.

It strikes me that France fell in large part because people thought they were beaten.

If the Nazis had a couple of divisions in Essex or Kent might Britain have fell apart.


I am assuming events in about June July 1940
 
Think I read a book where at Dunkirk, Germany managed to take everyone there are Prisoners leading to the conquer of Britain as they lost a lot of there forces.
 

Krall

Banned
If Germany had managed to capture all the troops at Dunkirk, all 400,000 or more of them, then Britain would be weakened, but it would probably still hold up to an ATL Sealion operation by fighting a war of attrition and by dominating the English Channel with its superior navy.

Or, at least, that's what hanging around on here for hours on end has taught me.
 
It doesn't really matter how many men the British lose at Dunkirk - a German invasion is basically impossible. It's the RAF and RN the Germans have to worry about - there's pretty much no chance of them being in a position to land troops.

However, if the entire BEF (or a large proportion) was captured, it could prove to be a very useful bargaining chip. Would the British public have the will to carry on the fight if Hitler threatened to execute tens of thousands of British prisoners? This could be used to force Britain to the table, and then as a continued threat after peace is signed (much as French POWs were used to threaten the Vichy regime in OTL.)
 
If Hitler decided early enough to invade Britain, as in when the Nazis first started to rise to power, he could set capability planning in place for when he actually did come to power early in 1933. If the capability plan was then undertaken from Feb 1933 yes Germany could have successfully invaded Britain in 1940. Indeed if he had that much foresight Germany would be a regular superpower today.
 
Sorry, planning for it early just wasnt going to work.
Theere was no room in the German factories for landing craft, so what were they not going to build instead? Tanks, guns? Every ship built reduces the land strength of the German army. And you need a LOT of ships for a successful cross-channel operation. Plus presumably a stronger navy to keep the Royal navy away.

The British arms buildup was nowhere near what it could have been - if they had seen the Germans building and experimenting with landing craft they would certainly have rearmed faster and harder, and also kept stronger forces at home just in case.
 
Had Hitler decided early on that he wanted to take on Britain could he have pulled it off.

Suppose the offensive caried on against Dunkirk so that most UK and French forces were captued.

Suppose an airborn attack had taken an East Coast port and the Nazis had taken a huge gamble.

It strikes me that France fell in large part because people thought they were beaten.

If the Nazis had a couple of divisions in Essex or Kent might Britain have fell apart.


I am assuming events in about June July 1940

The answer is no. For the outcome of an airborne attack against Britain, you have the outcome of the Battle of Britain to guide you. The Germans tried to achieve air superiority, and utterly failed.
Let those Ju 52s come without air superiority, the Kentish population will like those nice trophies on their barn doors.
 
I don't think the army would have carried out an order to execute western prisoners in 1940. If Hitler had ordered it, the old Prussian Guard would have overthrown him. The Germans always treated their western prisoners decently and according to Geneva convention standards - their reason for not treating the Soviet ones the same was that the Soviets had not signed the same convention.
 
I don't think the army would have carried out an order to execute western prisoners in 1940. If Hitler had ordered it, the old Prussian Guard would have overthrown him. The Germans always treated their western prisoners decently and according to Geneva convention standards - their reason for not treating the Soviet ones the same was that the Soviets had not signed the same convention.

1. There were Western prisoners killed in cold blood in 1940 by German troops.
2. The Germans should have applied the Geneva Convention provisions to every prisoner, regardless of whether the other combatant had signed it or not.
 

General Zod

Banned
A complete British defeat at Dunkirk, combined with the Fall of France, could have prompted a successful vote of No Confidence against Churchill.

Even if it doesn't, they will have to withdraw most of the forces in North Africa to man the Home Isles, leaving Egypt dangerously exposed to conquest.
 

Anaxagoras

Banned
Even if it doesn't, they will have to withdraw most of the forces in North Africa to man the Home Isles, leaving Egypt dangerously exposed to conquest.

Even that's only about 30,000 men at the time, IIRC. Better to focus on raising new divisions and ensuring the arrival of Canadian forces than to give up control of the Suez Canal.
 
1. There were Western prisoners killed in cold blood in 1940 by German troops.
2. The Germans should have applied the Geneva Convention provisions to every prisoner, regardless of whether the other combatant had signed it or not.
1. As was the case for Allied countries as well

2. Can't argue with that, though.
 
Yes, these were war crimes and executions of prisoners 1940, however, it was not organised or on a mass scale and absolutely not approved by the army leadership.

1940 the German army leadership was still very much the old Prussian Guard, with ideas of honour and the rules of war (except for Bolcheviks...). The army would simply refuse an order to execute large numbers of British prisoners.

Besides, ww2 proved pretty much that brutality did not scare resistance into submission. Look to the Soviet Union, to Yugoslavia or Greece or why not the Maquis in France Cruelty and brutality rather cemented resistance than break it.

It would be such a massive loss of prestige to the Germans too - such an act could perhaps bring the Americans into the war (at the very least I think 50-100 000 volunteers would be likely), and would absolutely cement commonwealth support for the war.
 
I'm sure. That happens in every war. But that wasn't anything akin to normal German practice on the Western front.

I'm glad to see you are taking back the claim that it had never happened.
As to "normal German practice", how would you define the Kommandobefehl.

Should, thwould; they didn't.

The point was that you mentioned "the reason why". Stated in this way, it might sound as if that was a _good_ reason. It wasn't. It was a poor excuse to violate the commitment Germany had freely signed.
 
Yes, these were war crimes and executions of prisoners 1940, however, it was not organised or on a mass scale and absolutely not approved by the army leadership.

1940 the German army leadership was still very much the old Prussian Guard, with ideas of honour and the rules of war (except for Bolcheviks...). The army would simply refuse an order to execute large numbers of British prisoners.

To be fair, I have no argument against that. Besides, and again because fair is fair, the most notorious case was committed by German servicemen, yes, but not by _Wehrmacht_ servicemen.
 
No unless the air attacks on airfields had continued in the Battle of Britain and he hadn't invaded Norway. Even if the BEF had been destroyed he had to gain air and naval supremacy to mount a successful invasion. Germany's surface fleet suffered heavy losses in Norway and a lot of the bigger ships were under repair. His destroyers were wiped out at Narvik.

Although there were isolated incidents of prisoners being shot by SS panzergrenadiers the Germany Army in general abided by international law probably because the outcome of the war was uncertain.

A question that could be asked is suppose there was no counterattack at Arras? Although it resulted in defeat in scared the German high command and resulted in Rommel and Guderians panzers being halted as they had advanced ahead of the infantry but even if they hadn't he Hilter still had to cross the channel
 
If Hitler decided early enough to invade Britain, as in when the Nazis first started to rise to power, he could set capability planning in place for when he actually did come to power early in 1933. If the capability plan was then undertaken from Feb 1933 yes Germany could have successfully invaded Britain in 1940. Indeed if he had that much foresight Germany would be a regular superpower today.

Although increasing the size of the air, naval, airborne and amphibious forces necessary to do this would not have gone unnoticed.
 
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