What if you were Hitler

Bismarck

@Wicked:

Don’t forget, unlike France or Norway surrender was no survivable option for the Russian population. Hitler made very clear quite early that he considered them “subhuman” and GeStaPo and SS did their deadly job in notorious german thouroughness in Poland, Belarus and Ukraine. So I’m not sure if taking the capital would have ended the war in Russia - perhaps the regular war, but not the need for massive amount of troops there. I’m pretty sure the long term need and lack of administrational staff and police for this vast area with millions of deads causing disobeyance and riots would have been more than a pain in the a… for the Reich.
The Nazi dictature based on nationalism including/featuring hatred towards Jews and Slaws, denunciation and a powerful police - that wouldn’t have worked there. But on second thought, they might have been able to get some russians to help and give some incentives like surviving a month longer… It would have been hell on earth.

In the end Hitler had not enough of his beloved true blood Germans to realize his megalomaniac ideas - you don’t make many friends by hating them constitutionally.

An important part of German planning for the postwar period included the intention of forcibly relocating 30 - 50 million Poles eastward, to make room for German expansion. Had the Allied food blockade still been in effect, the deaths of large numbers of Poles along the way would have been considered an acceptable way of relieving pressure on Germany’s food supply; thereby preventing the starvation of an equal number of non-Poles.

During the war, the combination of the Allied food blockade and Stalin’s scorched earth tactics made it impossible for Germany to feed all the people within the lands it had conquered from the Soviet Union. The physical impossibility of Germany feeding those people proved a boon for Soviet propagandists; who took advantage of the situation by claiming that Germany planned to starve or kill all the people of the conquered Soviet Union. Soviet propagandists were not normally considered a highly reliable source of information. In this instance, however, the fact that large numbers of people in German-occupied portions of the Soviet Union were actually starving seemed to lend a hint of credibility to these claims.

As the war in Europe became increasingly less favorable for Germany, large numbers of Soviet civilians fled west into Germany. The westward flight of many Soviet civilians demonstrates that not all Soviet citizens believed Soviet wartime propaganda.

@CWO:

@Linkon:

We all look back and the 20 / 20 history that shows us “of course !”, and how obvious it was after the fact.
Hitler planned for, and then invaded France.
Most of the Western powers and the Russians would have thought such a plan was a way out long shot.
It stunned the world that a superpower such as France (at the time) would fall to a crazy person like Hitler.
This poll mainly highlights the crazy things Hitler did that failed, and not the key crazy thing done that actually succeeded beyond belief.

This is indeed an interesting question to consider: whether Hitler’s planning and invasion of France is something that would have looked crazy at the time (as opposed to how it looks now in retrospect).  My feeling is that the answer depends on what is meant by “at the time.”  If someone had suggested in 1937 or 1938 or even as late as September 1, 1939 that Germany would conquer France in a campaign lasting just six weeks, and with very acceptable casualty figures on the German side, he would quite plausibly been regarded as a lunatic…or at least as a wild optimist (if he was German) or pessimist (if he was French).  By April of 1940, however, the basic concept that a German attack against France might succeed could (and should) have been taken very seriously by well-informed observers.  Eight months of wartime experience had shown that:

Armoured forces, operating aggressively in mass formations at key points of the front, closely supported by aircraft, motorized/mechanized infantry and self-propelled artillery, could achieve strategically decisive results in a short amount of time.

France appeared wedded to a purely defensive strategy, hinging on the static position of the Maginot Line, hence completely surrendering the strategic initiative to Germany and giving Hitler the priceless luxury of attacking at whatever time, in whatever location and in whatever manner he chose.

The French Army suffered from poor morale and poor political and leadership.  General Gamelin, in the words of one French official, “had no guts at all” and seemed to consider the French government to be more of an enemy than the Germans.  The French Army had made a token advance of a few kilometers into the Saar region, then had quietly withdrawn.  French soldiers were poorly paid, which often led them to use their infrequent leave time to earn some money on the side, and they tended to get so drunk when they were about to rejoin their regiments that special rooms were reserved by the military authorities in train stations to allow the men to recover.  The French general mobilization had pulled many trained men away from vital war industries, and it was only after much confusion that they were released from military service.  There was much political bickering among politicians and social/political disunity among the population at large.

In other words: by April 1940, France was militarily much more vulnerable than it may have looked at the start of the war.  Many of these problems (such as the lack of any French offensive worthy of the name) were plain for the Germans to see, and others would have been discernable by the Germans without too much trouble.  The eventual German campaign against France succeeded to a degree that was probably beyond anything that Germany could have hoped for, but by April 1940 it was not unrealistic for Germany to think that it at least had a decent shot at waging a successful campaign against France.

Good post.

Gamelin’s strategy for France was to fight a defensive war for the first few years. At that point, the Anglo-French production advantage over Germany would have given the Allies a large military advantage over Germany. Especially when weapons purchases or donations from the United States were taken into account. After the Allies had achieved a massive numerical advantage in artillery, tanks, planes, and anything else which could be built in factories, he’d launch his invasion.

The Allies discounted the effectiveness of Germany’s blitzkrieg tactics against Poland. Germany’s excellent performance merely served to reinforce preexisting Allied beliefs about Polish inferiority. The Allies had had a low opinion of Poland from the beginning, as shown by the false promises they made regarding a French general offensive. When Person A dupes Person B, Person A will normally convince himself Person B was an idiot who deserved to be duped. All con artists think that way, and the French and British political leaders of 1939 were no exception.

During the '39 conflict between Germany and Poland, the German generals outperformed their Polish counterparts. But, again, this was seen as largely a result of horrible Polish incompetence, and not necessarily evidence of superior German generalship. The one-sided nature of the Germano-Polish conflict of '39 did far more to increase the preexisting Anglo-French contempt for Poland, than it did to increase their respect for the competence of the German military.

Von Manstein was the best general of the war on either side; and one of the best generals in human history. He recognized that Germany would lose a long war against Britain and France. However, he saw an opportunity to use good tactics to even the strategic odds. It was he who devised the plan to invade France. Hitler adopted the plan, against the advice of many of his most senior generals.

But von Manstein’s plan to invade France was only the first in a two part plan to save Germany from the Allies. The second part would have been the invasion of Britain, launched in the summer of 1940. Von Manstein’s plans generally succeeded, and he was confident this plan would have succeeded too. However, Hitler rejected von Manstein’s plan–a decision which may have cost him the war.

The eventual German campaign against France succeeded to a degree that
was probably beyond anything that Germany could have hoped for

The invasion went mostly according to von Manstein’s plan. There were times when his plan was set aside or overruled. The overruling of parts of his plan led to the Dunkirk evacuation; as well as to a longer, more painful conquest of Paris than would otherwise have been the case. But other than those two things, events transpired largely as von Manstein had anticipated. That said, most Germans, including Hitler, were surprised by the sudden, favorable turn events had taken.

@Clyde85:

one of the few recordings of Hitler were he isn’t trying to shout the crazy out of his lungs

Another one is a brief audio clip included in the Stalingrad episode of the series “The World At War”, in which we hear Hitler making an after-dinner speech casually announcing that his troops had successfully occupied most areas of a certain city on the Volga named after Stalin, and that only a few mopping-up operations would be needed to overcome the remaining pockets of resistance.  It dates from around October 1942, I think.

@Vance:

Hitler’s party number was 555.  The number of the BEAST!  :evil:

The number of the beast is 666. Or 616, according to some.

From the Book of Revelation:

I saw another beast coming up out of the earth. He had two horns like a lamb, and he spoke like a dragon. 13:12 He exercises all the authority of the first beast in his presence. He makes the earth and those who dwell in it to worship the first beast, whose fatal wound was healed. 13:13 He performs great signs, even making fire come down out of the sky to the earth in the sight of people. 13:14 He deceives my own people who dwell on the earth because of the signs he was granted to do in front of the beast; saying to those who dwell on the earth, that they should make an image to the beast who had the sword wound and lived. 13:15 It was given to him to give breath to it, to the image of the beast, that the image of the beast should both speak, and cause as many as wouldn’t worship the image of the beast to be killed. 13:16 He causes all, the small and the great, the rich and the poor, and the free and the slave, to be given marks on their right hands, or on their foreheads; 13:17 and that no one would be able to buy or to sell, unless he has that mark, the name of the beast or the number of his name. 13:18 Here is wisdom. He who has understanding, let him calculate the number of the beast, for it is the number of a man. His number is six hundred sixty-six.

Very interesting story.  Thanks for sharing.

So this was the vehicle:

@Audacity:

Very interesting.  Can you direct us to published material about this?

I certainly can. My best source is “THE SS, Hitlers Instrument of Terror” by Gordon Williams. It was actually Himmlers idea to incorporate Muslims into SS units as an experiment. They used their new power to quickly murder “religious infidels” including Jews and were eventually given only police authority because of their lack of obediance to SS order. They had their own special collar tabs but were never issued an SS Honour cuff on the sleeve. Himmler had these units engaged in the Balkans, around Greece and a few other minor battles. They were actually fought VERY poorly and were taken off the front lines. For the rest of the war, the units that weren’t disbanded were used for anit-partisan activities and were “attached” to another SS unit but did not have the title SS.

It was a brief experiment that elated Himmler. Hitler has little to do with it as far as I know.

PS – thanks for all the Karma while I’ve been out sick for the last month. You guys rock.