@ABWorsham4 probably still scared the starving civilians , carrying rifles and 2 bullets each, half to death at the time though .
What IF canada stayed out of the war(IF)
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Why don’t you hear it from Winston Churchill himself. Read his Pulitzer Prize winning History on the Conflict The Second World War, Vol 2 ALONE. Then you will discover just how un-prepared and at the mercy of the enemy Great Britain was. Second to the Military support received by the UK in the Early war from Canada was the Moral support that England was not Alone… Winston Churchill would not have been called to form a Government after the fall of Neville Chamberlain, but rather Lord Halifax, who was committed to a peace settlement with Germany in the face of what seemed impossible odds for victory and utter defeat and destruction.
Churchill also said, “We shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight on the landing grounds, we shall fight in the fields and in the streets, we shall fight in the hills; we shall never surrender.” [the full version expounds this idea of ultimate determination in typical Churchillian speak.]
To say the absence of Canada’s military in the British effort against Germany would have led to Lord Halifax as prime minister is just too much speculation to argue on. How would that occur? Remember, Churchill became prime minister a month before the French surrender, so at that point Britain was not alone (if I recall right, Churchill was named prime minister on May 10, 1940, the same day as the German invasion). While the French Army was resoundly beaten in the first few weeks of battle, there was much hope on the British side that the French would invoke the elan that saved them from defeat two decades earlier. At least on paper the combined Franco-Anglo army possessed a numerical advantage in almost everything but aircraft, and some equipment, like the latest French tanks, were superior to what the Germans developed themselves and captured from Czechoslovakia.
In any case, I am not convinced that Britain would have capitulated or been captured without the military and moral support from Canada. Canada’s vast resources would still have been available (like Mr. Marachi said, there was money to be made by selling those resources and Britain was buying). Octospire said something about Britain losing all its money and America being lost, which doesn’t make any sense unless he thought this is an old AA strategy thread. Besides, Swedish armament companies supplied arms to all sides during the war, and made bank in the process. To the managers and factory owners and the people who needed the paycheck to survive, it didn’t matter who won or lost as long as they paid. :roll: Also, the cost of occupying Britain would have far outweighed whatever booty the Germans received, and would have left Germany spread even thinner in the approaching war against Russia.
Back to the topic, in those early pre-Pearl days the U.S. was still providing limited, but effective, convoy services for ships inbound for England, so the loss of the RCN in convoy escort operations would not have meant a West Atlantic devoid of Allied warships. Furthermore, it would seem unlikely for the U.S. to stand by as Germany mounted an invasion of Britain (which would not have been an easy operation to disguise). From all the determined and patriotic rhetoric heard in England during those days after the Fall of France, I don’t believe capitulation was even an option despite the loss of its official allies.
You must ask yourselves, could Germany have staged an invasion of Britain in the summer of 1940? To see even the slightest chance of success Sea Lion needed to commence right after the Dunkirk evacuation, when Allied forces were still licking their wounds in humiliation. Waiting any longer would have allowed the British to rearm and fortify the Island (as happened in real life). Since Germany had no strategic bomber capability, British factories were allowed to operate unimpeded and quickly made up the losses suffered in France.
Nor did Germany possess the dedicated landing craft or the innumerable support craft to aid an invasion fleet. How could the Germans land enough troops to matter? Would they swim?
The invasion would have required the Luftwaffe and the small Kriegsmarine to win superiority over both the Royal Air Force and the Royal Navy - an impossible feat. Even if the transports made it thought, the Germans would face opposition from an enemy more numerous than themselves who were fighting on their own soil (or for some, like the French soldiers fighting to recapture theirs) and had nothing more to lose. Such an operation would have made the losses at Tarawa insignificant in comparison.FM, you say the Allies could have lost in 1939-1940 (I assume you mean by losing England). Germany couldn’t have done this without knocking France out of the war, so 1939 is out of the question. In 1940 Germany did not possess the craft necessary to invade Britain or to supply its forces when it got there (any invasion would probably have been a one-way trip), and it would taken months at least to refocus the country’s factories towards producing the necessary equipment, and I doubt that would have even been a possibility. By then its probably 1941, Britain would be impregnable and the threat from the USSR could no longer be ignored. At that point, Sea Lion would be forever dropped from the war plans shelf and the conflict would progress much like it really did.
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Fairly complete analysis Zhukov, I see no flaws and your premises or conclusion. An interesting note, the US had to dramatically reduce Atlantic convoy protection post Dec 7, 1941. So in a time of peace they provided MORE protection to their allies than during the initial phases of the declared war.
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Most or all of the illegal killing within Germany would likely have ended once the British food blockade had been lifted. Hitler would eventually have died, and would likely have been replaced with a milder man.
Revisionist garbage, Kurt. Where do you get this stuff from?
One day me and you will go to the Holocaust Museum in D.C. with lots of duct tape wrapped around your mouth and we’re going to learn a few things about what happened inside Nazi-controlled Europe.
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Hitler was the man behind the Holocaust. He was responsible for all those killings. He gave to orders. Without him none of that would have happened.
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It was more insidious than you say Pvt. Ryan. It would be difficult for Hitler to be found guilty of ordering the killing of a single Jew in a court of law. There are no direct orders from him to construct the concentration camps, ship people there or even to kill any single Jew.
What Hitler DID do, by hate-filled rhetoric and control over the media (among other things too numerous to list here) was make taking these actions acceptable, even desirable behavior on the part of those underneath him and German society at large. He corrupted the entire German nation.
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Yeah but when it all boils down to it he’s the one responsible. You can’t argue with that.
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No, he is not the ONE responsible, but he was one of the responsible, if not the most responsible.
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I believe he was the ONE responsible even though others were responsible as well. No Hitler, no Holocaust.
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No arguement with that. Hitler was the main person behind WWII and the holocaust. But many others were also guilty.
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Yes.
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If Canada would have stayed out of the war…. oh, the poor Dutch girls would have been so sad… :-D
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Canada proving 7-8% of manpower and industrial capacity doesnt seem like much but in 1940 there was no U.S involvement in the war or the Soviet Union so Canada’s share of manpower and resources would of been far greater than 7 or 8%.
Thanks Octospire for joining the discussion and for your input. This is the point I was trying to make. In the overall conflict 1939-45 it is true that Canada only contributed 7-8% of manpower and industrial capacity. But in the Early stages of the European conflict it was a much higher percentage when only Great Britain and Canada were fighting the Battle of the Atlantic, and the Air war over the UK. This contribution at this crucial time was enough to keep the British in the “game”.
Great point also about the equally important role of South Africa and ANZAC troops in the African campaign.
So arguably, the Allies could have lost the war in 39-40 “IF Canada stayed out of the war”.
Aside: This has been a really good discussion. We should have more on this board like this!
just reading up on this topic(been busy) thanks FMG i guess i know how to star a good topic.;)
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Most or all of the illegal killing within Germany would likely have ended once the British food blockade had been lifted. Hitler would eventually have died, and would likely have been replaced with a milder man.
Revisionist garbage, Kurt. Where do you get this stuff from?
One day me and you will go to the Holocaust Museum in D.C. with lots of duct tape wrapped around your mouth and we’re going to learn a few things about what happened inside Nazi-controlled Europe.
In my initial post, I made three separate factual claims or implications.
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That a British (and later an Anglo-American) food blockade had existed during WWII.
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That this food blockade resulted in a severe food crisis within Germany.
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That a proximate cause of the decision to exterminate the Jews was the desire to reduce pressure on the food supply.
If you would like me to support some or all of these claims, I’ll be happy to do so. I’ll also be happy to avoid using sources any reasonable person might consider “revisionist.”
That being said, I find your above-quoted response devoid of substance. Other than using emotion-laden words or phrases like “revisionist,” “Holocaust Museum,” and “lots of duct tape wrapped around your mouth,” it contributes nothing to the discussion; and certainly not to anyone’s search for accurate information about the three points listed above.
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In my initial post, I made three separate factual claims or implications.
- That a proximate cause of the decision to exterminate the Jews was the desire to reduce pressure on the food supply.
If you would like me to support some or all of these claims, I’ll be happy to do so. I’ll also be happy to avoid using sources any reasonable person might consider “revisionist.”
That being said, I find your above-quoted response devoid of substance. Other than using emotion-laden words or phrases like “revisionist,” “Holocaust Museum,” and “lots of duct tape wrapped around your mouth,” it contributes nothing to the discussion; and certainly not to anyone’s search for accurate information about the three points listed above.
Yeah, number three up there is the one I have a problem with. Please, humor me with “facts” and “sources” to support this point. You are right, my post was without substance but how much substance should one attribute to comments like, “The Jews were killed because the Germans were hungry?” You mean to tell me the extermination of Europe’s Jews had little or nothing to do with Hitler’s twisted and racial ideology that strived to wipe out all “impurities” from the “master race?”
To be honest, I’d rather not argue this subject with you because, in my opinion, you do not have a firm grasp of the horror that occurred in Nazi-occupied Europe or you willfully choose to ignore all the evidence. Besides, Nazi depravities in WWII is a subject that doesn’t need to be argued. Why would I argue that the Earth revolves around the Sun when we know it to be fact?
To be honest, Kurt, I used to think like you that those nasty Germans couldn’t have been all that bad. But then I started reading and discovered just how uninformed I was.
But if you want to start a thread where you justify or explain why Nazi Germany killed millions of Jews, and why German soldiers were forced to shoot up busses filled with school children and why everything they did is OK because the Allies made them do it, please be my guest. Let’s not hijack this thread anymore.
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Kurt, you might as well say the Jews were killed because English people have this stupid way about them,the silly bastards use the word day to end every day of the week…monDAY, tuesDAY, sunDAY. And because the allies use the word DAY, the Jews had to be killed, its only logical right…
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First of all most the GERMANS didn’t kill the Jews. The NAZIS did. Also only Nazis killed the Jews not the Wehrmacht. They were two completely different organizations.
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- That a proximate cause of the decision to exterminate the Jews was the desire to reduce pressure on the food supply.
Yeah, number three up there is the one I have a problem with. Please, humor me with “facts” and “sources” to support this point.
Prior to the start of WWII, Hitler had envisioned solving the so-called “Jewish problem” by forcibly shipping Europe’s Jews to Madagascar. Putting the plan into effect would have required victory over the Allies, because Britain had refused to allow large numbers of Jews to immigrate to Palestine or its other colonies. Prior to the British adoption of the White Paper of 1939, “Jewish migration [out of Germany] was impeded by Nazi restrictions on the transfer of finances abroad (departing Jews had to abandon their property), but the Jewish Agency was able to negotiate an agreement allowing Jews resident in Germany to buy German goods for export to Palestine thus circumventing the restrictions.”
That mechanism is explained in more detail in Adam Tooze’s excellent work, The Wages of Destruction. The book has been praised by The Times (London), The Boston Globe, Financial Times, The Wall Street Journal, The New York Sun, and other major media outlets. On pages 89 - 90, Tooze writes,
The Haavara Transfer was designed to take advantage of this loophole. The scheme operated by allowing German Jews to make payments into a fund in Berlin in exchange for certificates crediting them with sufficient Palestinian pounds to allow them to obtain the coveted visa. Hanotea for its part used the funds deposited in Berlin to buy German goods for export to Palestine. The emigrants were reimbursed in Palestinian pounds when the German goods were sold to Jewish or Arab customers. In effect, the arrangement ensured that every Reichsmark of capital exported by a German-Jewish emigrant was matched by a compensating export order. As the Reichsbank tightened its grip on its foreign exchange reserves, Haavara became, despite the tiny size of the Mandate economy, one of the most efficient means for Jews to export capital from Germany. In total, 50,000 people, one-tenth of the German-Jewish population in 1933, were able to use this scheme to make good their escape. . . . [Jews who emigrated under this scheme] paid a discount of only 35 per cent, at a time when the majority of Jewish emigrants were able to rescue only a tiny fraction of their wealth.
Muslim resistance to the above plan inspired Britain to adopt the White Paper of 1939, under which further Jewish immigration into Palestine was severely restricted. Therefore, the Nazi regime had to postpone its efforts to solve the so-called “Jewish problem” via further emigration out of Europe.
Tooze also describes the German food supply.
pp. 418-419
After 1939 the supply of food in Western Europe was no less constrained than the supply of coal. . . . Grain imports in the late 1930s had run at the rate of more than 7 million tons per annum mostly from Argentina and Canada. These sources of supply were closed off by the British blockade. . . . By the summer of 1940, Germany was facing a Europe-wide agricultural crisis. . . . By 1941 there were already signs of mounting discontent due to the inadequate food supply. In Belgium and France, the official ration allocated to ‘normal consumers’ of as little as 1,300 calories per day, was an open invitation to resort to the black market.
p. 539
When the order to ship large numbers of Eastern European workers to Germany was first given, Backe protested vigorously. The 400,000 Soviet prisoners of war already in Germany were more than he could provide for. . . . If the Russians were to be given meat, they would have to be supplied at the expense of the German population.
p 541
Backe was in an impossible position. The Fuehrer had demanded more workers. Gauleiter Sauckel was dedicated to delivering them. Hitler and Sauckel now demanded that the workers be fed, which was clearly a necessity if they were to be productive. And yet, given the level of grain stocks, Backe was unable to meet this demand.
p. 542
Entire groups were to be excluded from the food supply, most notably the Jews. As Goebbels noted in his diary, the new regime would be based on the principle that before Germany starved ‘it would be the turn of a number of other peoples.’
pp. 544 - 545
Faced with Germany’s food shortage in 1942, Backe went much further. He now demanded that the Governor General should reverse the flow. Rather than receive food supplements from Germany, the General Government [of Poland] was to make sizable food deliveries. . . . Backe predicated his demands on the elimination of Polish Jews from the food chain. . . . Eliminating the Jews would . . . reduce the number of people that needed feeding.
p. 549
By the end of August 1942, this extraordinary series of measures spread a palpable mood of relief throughout Berlin. Backe, Himmler, and Goering had staved off a disastrous downward spiral in the food supply.
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And that relates to Canada how?
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sorry IL but Zhukov has a way of getting off topic. We’'ll keep it on Canada for now on.
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a) if the gremans didnt kill the the jews therd have 2.~ million ward working soldiers at there command.
b) back on to pioc (if possible)
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