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coolstorm
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Topic: What if Germany had not attacked the Soviet? Posted: 11-Nov-2004 at 14:31 |
Any thoughts folks?
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Winterhaze13
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Posted: 11-Nov-2004 at 15:35 |
Such an interesting topic, history tells us that Hitler invaded the Soviet Union because he knew that if he suceeded that Germany would have to accomodate Soviet Interests. But an even more interesting question would be if Germany and the Soviet Union fought together the entire war would the British Empire and the United States be able to defeat them?
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Christscrusader
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Posted: 13-Nov-2004 at 17:39 |
IF Germany did not attack the Soviet, this would be a big impact, but surly the Allies would still win. Even if they repelled the attacks from the British and Americans, controlling over 30 some countries would be too big of a hastle for the Nazis, and eventuially rebellions would result and weaken it. Then the British and Americans would surley move in, and i suspect the Russians would also join in on the attacks.
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Paul
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Posted: 13-Nov-2004 at 20:04 |
There would certainly be nothing Britain and the US could do about Germany without the Soviet Union. John Ellis in his excellent book Brute Force shows why.
Total number of combat months by each German Division during entire war.
Russia N.W. Europe Italy & nbsp; N. Africa Other*
7,146 637 &nb sp; 393 91 & ;nbs p; 665
* France 1940, Poland 1939, Greece, Norway, Finland ect
This chart neglect to point out equipment and troop quality. Practically all the best German troop and equipment were on the Russian front.
The Second World War was a war between Russia and Germany with two very minor contributions by Britain and US.
Britain and the US weren't even capable of fighting Germany on the ground. However this doesn't mean the air war would have gone any worse. Even without a Russia front German simply didn't have the capacity to match either Britain or America at air production, so two alternative strategies come to light. The first is total saturation bombing by Britain. This was proposed by Bomber Harris but never taken up. It was basically Nurnburg and Dresden as a nightly objective. The total annihilation of German civilians causing a loss of moral in the German citizenship and army overseas learning of the deaths of their families. Harris reconh he could kill 6/7 million German civilians in a period of six monthsduring 1944 and this would collapse Germany. Alternatively in 1946 the option of going nuclear against Germany would exist.
Edited by Paul
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Guests
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Posted: 14-Nov-2004 at 03:45 |
If Hitler never attacked the Soviet Union? I'm pretty sure Stalin would have attacked germany eventually.
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Imperatore Dario I
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Posted: 14-Nov-2004 at 05:49 |
Hitler from the beginning was doomed to fail, with or without attacking the USSR. Even if he managed to overthrow the British, the Russians, the Americans, he would have still lost. German troops were not capable of maintaining a lengthy occupation (which was a major cause of the German collapse), and eventually, the people of the occupied countries would have rebelled together and would have overthrown Germany and invaded the country, taking off Hitler.
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Let there be a race of Romans with the strength of Italian courage.- Virgil's Aeneid
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Spartakus
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Posted: 24-Nov-2004 at 13:56 |
The war would last for many years and Germany would invade Britain,prevail in north Africa and control Malta.Now who would win?That's really a big enigma.Personally,Germany would be the winner.It would have the technological advantage giving her air superiority and ground superiority.Can you imagine thousands of Maus,Tigers,King Tigers,Me-262s,He 219s and hundreds of V-2/V-1 missiles?The other advantage would be in troops,they're wouldn't be any heavy losses,and experienced soldiers would be in enough numbers to ensure the victory.The nuclear advantage of USA would collapse because Germany had the plans of making a nuclear bomb and, concerning their technology,they would have constracted faster their project .The sure is that if U.S.S.R was a Germany's ally this would be a nightmare!
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Kalevipoeg
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Posted: 24-Nov-2004 at 14:32 |
Germany and the USSR could never have remained allies for the entire war so one of the two was doomed to attack the other. And yes, how could Germany have been able to control the vast areas he would have conquered in better circumstances. It would have been impossible to keep all of the conquered nations of Europe and then the ones from other continents under iron-control. Sounds pretty utopic to me.
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There is nothing in the world more helpless and irresponsible than a man in the depths of an ether binge...
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Spartakus
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Posted: 24-Nov-2004 at 15:03 |
They where fascists.They could use propaganda and violence.Facism is an ideology very easily spreading with these ways.Do not forget how many legions filled with European fascists did exist under the control of the Nazi party.After all it was not only Germany who could occupied Europe:Italy,Bulgaria,Rumania, and even Spain or Turkey could be used to control South and East Europe(except from Russia of course) and the rest to the Germans.....
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"There are worse crimes than burning books. One of them is not reading them. "
--- Joseph Alexandrovitch Brodsky, 1991, Russian-American poet, b. St. Petersburg and exiled 1972 (1940-1996)
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Winterhaze13
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Posted: 02-Dec-2004 at 10:49 |
Does anyone believe in the 30 years war thesis? Some historians believe that World War One was the biggest reason for the outbreak of the Second World War. However, I do not think it is that simple, because some European powers changed so much in terms of regimes and ambitions between the wars.
Edited by Winterhaze13
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white dragon
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Posted: 02-Dec-2004 at 16:38 |
i say that ww2 would have been won by the germans, but
soon after the war the german empire would have collasped
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Winterhaze13
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Posted: 02-Dec-2004 at 17:08 |
I don;t know if it would have been won by the German, but I am certain that if the Nazi-Soviet Pact was never signed Germany probably would not have attacked Poland and started world war two. Germany was starved of resourced before the war they would not have been capable of successfully invading Poland and France without help from the Soviet Union.
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Winterhaze13
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Posted: 07-Dec-2004 at 15:44 |
How about this for a discussion: What was the major turning point of World War Two? Was it Stalingrad, D-Day or was the Pearl Harbour? Or do you have another event that you feel outways the one's mentioned.
Edited by Winterhaze13
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capcartoonist
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Posted: 09-Dec-2004 at 09:12 |
Germany had to invade Russia because the Germans needed "Living Space." The idea was to wipe out the Slavs and send in German colonists.
However, the Germans were at first hailed as liberators by Soviet peoples. That soon changed when the SS death squads entered the scene.
The Germans could have won if they treated the Slavs as equals.
But they could not treat them as equals because they had to be exterminated.
Catch 22.
Interesting question as to whether or not the 3rd Reich could have been beaten w/o Soviet help. 80% of Germany's war effort went to the Russian front. But the USA's financial expenditures for the war was greater than than of Germany, Russia and UK combined. Or as Stalin put it, The British paid for the war in time, the Americans paid in money, the Russians paid in blood.
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capcartoonist
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Posted: 09-Dec-2004 at 09:18 |
"Does anyone believe in the 30 years war thesis? Some historians believe that World War One was the biggest reason for the outbreak of the Second World War. However, I do not think it is that simple, because some European powers changed so much in terms of regimes and ambitions between the wars.
Edited by Winterhaze13 on 02 December 2004 at 10:49am "
WWI had a lot to do with it. Hitler's foreign policy was built around 2 themes: revenge against France, and expansion to the East. The former, obviously, came out of WWI.
I must also point out that one of the German delagates at the 1919 Versailles conference turned to a journalist after the treaty was signed and said, "We'll see you again in 20 years."
However, the war between German and Russia was due to population growth in Central and Eastern Europe which had started in the mid or late 19th century, and therefore actually pre-dates WWI.
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capcartoonist
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Posted: 09-Dec-2004 at 09:21 |
"How about this for a discussion: What was the major turning point of World War Two? Was it Stalingrad, D-Day or was the Pearl Harbour? Or do you have another event that you feel outways the one's mentioned.
Edited by Winterhaze13 on 07 December 2004 at 3:44pm "
Pearl Harbor was definately one of the turning points.
Another was the Battle of Britain. Had the Germans not switched from attacking military targets to civilian targets they would have defeated the UK.
A third turning point was the Battle of the Atlantic. If we'd lost that, D-Day would never have happened. And UK would have been starved into submission.
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Cap
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Temujin
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Posted: 09-Dec-2004 at 13:52 |
Originally posted by capcartoonist
However, the war between German and Russia was due to population growth in Central and Eastern Europe which had started in the mid or late 19th century, and therefore actually pre-dates WWI.
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no, it was outright racism, there was no need for space, that was part of Hitlers propaganda to get the people follow him.
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Genghis
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Posted: 09-Dec-2004 at 14:47 |
Originally posted by Temujin
Originally posted by capcartoonist
However, the war between German and Russia was due to population growth in Central and Eastern Europe which had started in the mid or late 19th century, and therefore actually pre-dates WWI.
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no, it was outright racism, there was no need for space, that was part of Hitlers propaganda to get the people follow him.
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Exactly, with modern economics space is a relatively minor thing. Look at crowded nations like Japan that are prosperous.
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Belisarius
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Posted: 10-Dec-2004 at 15:30 |
I wouldn't be so sure as to say that Germany wouldn't have been able to successfully occupy at least Europe. The children of those who survive his ethnic cleansing would have been brainwashed into worshipping the fatherland.
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