What did Hitler hope to achieve with the DoW on USA ?

[Hammerbolt]

Germany because, even without Britain as a springboard, the US could still invade French North Africa, and then Italy, Sardinia, Corsica, France, Balkans... all the way to Germany. With German troops spread in occupied Russia.

This... I have my doubts, tbh. Such an undertaking would requite massive logistics and time. Remember how long it took to pile up equipment and men in the UK, just to spring them across 20 miles. All of that would have to be done cross-Atlantic, across a sea infested with the new generations of Type XXI U-boats.

Edit: I see a greater possiblity of B-36s dropping nukes, tbh.

 

[Star Eater]

The US would, I imagine, have declared war itself the moment the next American ship got torpedoed by the Kriegsmarine. Considering the sea change in the U.S. public's psychology after Pearl Harbor, it'd be reason enough at that point especially as they could easily equate the same evils associated with the Japanese to the Germans

 

[Colonel Zoidberg]

I think it would be fairer to say that Hitler was a product of his time and place, albeit more influential than most. The declaration of war on the U.S. was apparently greeted fairly well in most parts of Nazi Germany (and in most parts of the UK, too - so a perfect crowd-pleasing solution!).

The bigger point though is that the Nazis recognized correctly that they could not just grow to become a leading world power without stepping on the toes of the other world powers. Therefore, war with the other powers is a question of when, not if. They're going to declare war on you eventually, if you don't declare war on them first. Therefore, you may as well choose a time that seems to be to your advantage. Declaring war on the U.S. when he did gave him credit with the Japanese and justified U-boat attacks on American shipping.

In hindsight it was obviously a bit of a blunder, but Hitler didn't have a very good understanding of how democratic politics worked in Britain, let alone in the United States, so he had a hard time understanding how an action like a declaration of war would influence U.S. political decisions. Particularly after he'd already underestimated French and British willingness to go to war over Poland, I think Hitler really did not understand how much his actions would be a thumb on the scales in Washington.

To the extent he did, though, it's still not a completely insane idea. He didn't think he could actually invade the U.S. in 1941, but if he could defeat any attempt to invade Europe, that would be just as good. And he might have been able to, if not for the catastrophe in Russia, but that is another story.

The reason I say he was dumber than whale shit is this - yes, he has to go after the superpowers and the biggest, baddest motherfuckers in the world at some point. But if you have to fight two said motherfuckers, picking a fight with both at the same time is utterly idiotic. Had Hitler focused on the USSR, he might have had a shot, albeit a tough shot . But remember that the USSR was protected by that massive winter and the Ural Mountains, adding to the difficulty, and Stalin had no qualms about sending a metric fuckton of people to die in order to win.

So in summary, beating the Russians was hard enough. Factor in the Americans, whom the Germans had faced before, who had been prepping for a naval war with the Japanese for some time, and who were protected by a fucking ocean in addition to all kinds of radically different terrain. Why in God’s name did Hitler think taking on the Americans and the Russians at the same time was a good idea? It’s like trying to win a basketball game and putting MJ and LeBron on the other team.

 

[skarosianlifeform]

The problem is, for invading Soviet Union he had to go through Poland. Meaning war with UK and France. Meaning likely war (or undeclared conflict at sea) with the USA.

His choices were :
Expand west
Expand east (war with the Anglo-US)
Expand into Balkans (war with the Anglo-US)

Nazi plans were almost unworkable, unless they somehow managed to force Britain to negociate peace BEFORE any conflict with the US. Or brought Poland on their side and invaded the SU with Polish support.

 

[Finbarr the Fair]

The problem is, for invading Soviet Union he had to go through Poland. Meaning war with UK and France. Meaning likely war (or undeclared conflict at sea) with the USA.

His choices were :
Expand west
Expand east (war with the Anglo-US)
Expand into Balkans (war with the Anglo-US)

Nazi plans were almost unworkable, unless they somehow managed to force Britain to negociate peace BEFORE any conflict with the US. Or brought Poland on their side and invaded the SU with Polish support.

TBF to Hitler (not a phrase I use often) I think he did try to get the UK to be neutral, both before the War and during it. He just made a mess of the attempts by misjudging just what Chamberlain could tolerate after Munich. Occupying Czechia and making a puppet of Slovakia pushed the UK into the joint guarantee with France to Poland. Without that move the Uk might have found his demands for Danzig and Memel as reasonable. Note the might.

After the accession of Churchill and the Fall of France there were still clumsy attempts to get a peace deal with Britain. Churchill would never have agreed but others might have dome so. But with only tentative feelers, e.g. through a Swedish businessman, and no clear offer, there was never a chance of Churchill being unseated. Especially after the Battle of Britain raised British morale and the Blitz cemented a determination to continue with the war.

Of course, any such Peace was only likely to last as long was convenient for Britain anyway.

 

[DaveBC]

The reason I say he was dumber than whale shit is this - yes, he has to go after the superpowers and the biggest, baddest motherfuckers in the world at some point. But if you have to fight two said motherfuckers, picking a fight with both at the same time is utterly idiotic. Had Hitler focused on the USSR, he might have had a shot, albeit a tough shot . But remember that the USSR was protected by that massive winter and the Ural Mountains, adding to the difficulty, and Stalin had no qualms about sending a metric fuckton of people to die in order to win.

So in summary, beating the Russians was hard enough. Factor in the Americans, whom the Germans had faced before, who had been prepping for a naval war with the Japanese for some time, and who were protected by a fucking ocean in addition to all kinds of radically different terrain. Why in God’s name did Hitler think taking on the Americans and the Russians at the same time was a good idea? It’s like trying to win a basketball game and putting MJ and LeBron on the other team.

In Hitler's mind at the time, the Battle of Moscow would be over soon and the Russians would be out of the war. If the Russians were out of the war, Germany could concentrate their best forces in western Europe to ward off the Americans.

And again, in his mind, the U.S. is going to declare war on him anyways.

 

[DaveBC]

TBF to Hitler (not a phrase I use often) I think he did try to get the UK to be neutral, both before the War and during it. He just made a mess of the attempts by misjudging just what Chamberlain could tolerate after Munich. Occupying Czechia and making a puppet of Slovakia pushed the UK into the joint guarantee with France to Poland. Without that move the Uk might have found his demands for Danzig and Memel as reasonable. Note the might.

After the accession of Churchill and the Fall of France there were still clumsy attempts to get a peace deal with Britain. Churchill would never have agreed but others might have dome so. But with only tentative feelers, e.g. through a Swedish businessman, and no clear offer, there was never a chance of Churchill being unseated. Especially after the Battle of Britain raised British morale and the Blitz cemented a determination to continue with the war.

Of course, any such Peace was only likely to last as long was convenient for Britain anyway.

There seems to be a contingent, including Hitler and a couple members of this board (the ones who suggested in a Sea Lion thread a couple months ago that even if Britain successfully defeated a Sea Lion-type invasion it would probably surrender anyways once the fighting was over), that believe proud great powers are ready to surrender at the figurative drop of a hat. To the contrary, everything I have seen in modern history suggests that when you push them, they try their best to push back harder, even if their original intention was to be conciliatory.

That said, much like the U.S., it's my understanding that in Nazi philosophy the war with Britain should have fallen into the "eventual and inevitable" category like the war with the U.S., whereas the re-invasion of Russia was always the planned "main event," the big war between good and evil that needed to be fought for Germany to seize its destiny. The invasion of Poland wasn't supposed to provoke a general war, and the Sea Lion hoopla was supposed to scare Britain to the peace table. In judging the likely reactions of democratic great powers to his actions, Hitler seems in the end to have been at least 0 for 3. Oops.

 

[Finbarr the Fair]

There seems to be a contingent, including Hitler and a couple members of this board (the ones who suggested in a Sea Lion thread a couple months ago that even if Britain successfully defeated a Sea Lion-type invasion it would probably surrender anyways once the fighting was over), that believe proud great powers are ready to surrender at the figurative drop of a hat. To the contrary, everything I have seen in modern history suggests that when you push them, they try their best to push back harder, even if their original intention was to be conciliatory.

That said, much like the U.S., it's my understanding that in Nazi philosophy the war with Britain should have fallen into the "eventual and inevitable" category like the war with the U.S., whereas the re-invasion of Russia was always the planned "main event," the big war between good and evil that needed to be fought for Germany to seize its destiny. The invasion of Poland wasn't supposed to provoke a general war, and the Sea Lion hoopla was supposed to scare Britain to the peace table. In judging the likely reactions of democratic great powers to his actions, Hitler seems in the end to have been at least 0 for 3. Oops.

I agree with both points. I don't think it's completely impossible that the UK could have been induced to settle for a "white peace" at some point between July 1940 and emid-1941, but it would have to be led by someone other than Churchill and the deal would have to be one that it's virtually impossible to see Hitler offering. The 'declare the war to be over' strategy of no further hostile actions towards Britain (just defence against Bomber raids etc.) rather than start the BOB and invasion threat might have a faint chance of provoking a Peace Faction in the UK but is still implausible. Fun TL though

Hitler clearly found it difficult to stick to his core objective. Too much opportunism brings short-term rewards but derails long term strategy.

 

[Geon]

Hitler also didn't realize that what he considered our "greatest weakness" was actually our greatest strength. Namely, our diversity as a people. He credited our successes to the "Germanic" blood in our nation and our failures to the "mongrel" blood we had by mixing immigrants of various nationalities.

Hitler's world view apparently saw the U.S. as always one step away from another civil war due to its racial make-up. Like Japan he could not conceive of the American people remaining a united people for long after Pearl Harbor. Also, like Japan, he believed that a few bloody noses on the battlefield and the American public would be demanding its leadership come to the negotiation table. What he didn't reckon with was how united Pearl Harbor made and how determined we were as a people to beat him and his Axis allies to a bloody pulp!

 

[Galba Otho Vitelius]

I think there was a discussion on this board about why the Germans didn't push to develop atomic weapons, and someone brought up that their analysts estimated that by the time useful bombs would be available, the war would be over. And this turned out to be completely accurate for the Germans.

Its not quite the same thing with the USA, but already close. The USA had already started mobilizing -in the past this was taken as tantamount to a declaration of war- and was obviously preparing to go to war with Germany after the right incident. In the event, actual American participation in combat didn't start to really matter until mid-1943. Since they were mobilizing anyway, after an American declaration of war in mid 1942, their impact in combat would have wound up being felt in mid 1943 anyway. Really the PR and some of the planning conferences would have been different, but that is it. Its not that the Americans didn't fight in 1942, but they weren't very effective, in either the bomber campaign, against the u-boats, or on land.

And by mid 1943 Germany had lost the war anyway. Their last chance was to knock out Russia in 1942.

Myself, I wouldn't have bothered, but as someone put it earlier it was really for the free soda refills at that point. This is another case where it was really the entire strategy of conquering a continental European slave empire in preparation for war against a USA that presumably wouldn't stop the empire from being formed that was insane, not so much the particular way they went about it.

 

[All Hail Enterprise]

Hitler also didn't realize that what he considered our "greatest weakness" was actually our greatest strength. Namely, our diversity as a people. He credited our successes to the "Germanic" blood in our nation and our failures to the "mongrel" blood we had by mixing immigrants of various nationalities.

Hitler's world view apparently saw the U.S. as always one step away from another civil war due to its racial make-up. Like Japan he could not conceive of the American people remaining a united people for long after Pearl Harbor. Also, like Japan, he believed that a few bloody noses on the battlefield and the American public would be demanding its leadership come to the negotiation table. What he didn't reckon with was how united Pearl Harbor made and how determined we were as a people to beat him and his Axis allies to a bloody pulp!

Mfw the axis dismiss atomic physics as "judenphysiks"

 

[Mackus]

There was a short window of opportunity for semi-plausible German victory, in 1941. Avoid coup that takes Yugoslavia out of German sphere and subsequent balkan war that delayed Barbarossa. If Germans succeed in taking Leningrad-Moscow-Stalingrad quickly enough, then British might give up and go for negotiated peace. But even if British decide to keep going and US gets attacked by Japan, Red Army will disintegrate and USSR will collapse. Nazi racial nonsense would result in occupied USSR being net drain on and manpower, while some sort of Vichy-like arrangement could cut on costs of occupation (nazis also kept collective farms, dissolving them would improve food production in occupied territories). Freed manpower could be enough to prevent any successful invasion on European mainland, and if air superiority over Germany would be maintained, it'd mean US couldn't drop the bomb.
That's a lot conditional ifs, but no outright impossibles.

 

[Galba Otho Vitelius]

"nazis also kept collective farms"

(OT) Wow that was stupid. There is a POD there too.

 

[Jack Brisco]

The hope was that Japan would divert America's main effort to the Pacific, whilst Germany defeated the Soviet Union, knocked Britain out of the Med and the Middle East, and successfully blockaded the British Isles. The hope wasn't to defeat the United States as much as impress upon them the futility of trying to prevent German hegemony over Europe after all these prior victories had been won.

This, pretty much. But Hitler and company needed to look back at history. When the USA came into WWI, we helped provide the punches that brought Germany to the armistice table. Otherwise, the Yanks had planned to lead the way, all the way to Berlin in 1919. Want to declare war on us? Okay, you asked for it...

They should seriously have talked with Walter Warlimont. Major General in December 1941.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walter_Warlimont


In 1929 Warlimont spent a year in the USA studying American industry and industrial mobilization capability during wartime. Would say he traveled all around the country. Warlimont knew just how much the USA could really produce when we got things on a wartime basis, and our potential to produce even more. That potential was borne out, in spades. Guess his reports were ignored in the end.

Agree Hitler, like many Germans and probably many others outside the USA, had no idea just how big America was and how little chance they had of any meaningful attack against the country.

 

[The Red]

This, pretty much. But Hitler and company needed to look back at history. When the USA came into WWI, we helped provide the punches that brought Germany to the armistice table.

Ah but remember that, for Hitler, America's role in the First World War was inconsequential. Germany had been on the brink of victory before the Jews, the Communists, and Philipp Scheidemann stabbed the German army in the back. Germany's defeat had nothing at all to do with America entering the conflict, military collapse after Hundred Days, the overheating economy, or any other one of those pesky material reasons.

 

[Carl Schwamberger]

... it'd be reason enough at that point especially as they could easily equate the same evils associated with the Japanese to the Germans

A lot of people already saw the nazis for what they were. Over the years I've discovered how many people in the US had direct family & business connections with people in Occupied Europe. The information filtering back in correspondence & talking with refugees arriving in the US and neutral nations was painting a picture as ugly as the German occupation of Belgium in the Great War. Most adults remembered that story & were prepared to believe it again. Seymour Hershs 'Patterns of Conquest' published in the spring of 1941 hit a nerve among a portion of the US population.

 

[Jack Brisco]

Ah but remember that, for Hitler, America's role in the First World War was inconsequential. Germany had been on the brink of victory before the Jews, the Communists, and Philipp Scheidemann stabbed the German army in the back. Germany's defeat had nothing at all to do with America entering the conflict, military collapse after Hundred Days, the overheating economy, or any other one of those pesky material reasons.

Yup, saying what they needed to do, not what they did. And just like in so many other areas, Hitler ended up screwing himself.

 

[PSL]

GERMANY never planned any war with either USSR or USA. Hitler on the other hand had such racial hatred for the Slaves & Jews that once he embraced AMERICA as the leader of international Jewary [After Munich] he was driven to attack America & Russia.. No wonder there were 20 attempts on his life...many were from Wehrmacht.

 

[Craig]

Seymour Hershs 'Patterns of Conquest' published in the spring of 1941 hit a nerve among a portion of the US population.

The author, Joseph C. Harsch, was the Berlin correspondent for the Christian Science Monitor.

 

[Mackus]

"nazis also kept collective farms"

(OT) Wow that was stupid. There is a POD there too.

Well, there was method to the madness. Collective farming made starving everyone easier (as soviets provided plenty of evidence). If collectives were dissolved, and landholding peasants merely (heavily) taxed, they'd sell surplus to Russian cities and German army, and if taxes were too high they'd just hide some grain just in case (Russians and Ukrainians had decades to learn how to hide grain from commissars... which is why collectivization was pushed so heavily, to stop kulaks from "hoarding"). That would mean little to no Slavs starving, and that'd be unacceptable to Hitler. But if you have collective farms, you can more easily confiscate everything and leave people to rot. They also ended up with less food for soldiers, but hey, why bother to get Endsieg without Lebensraum, eh?