MovieChat Forums > Battle of the Bulge (1966) Discussion > What if the war HAD lasted another year ...

What if the war HAD lasted another year or so??


Would the forecast of the commander had come to fruition?? The one where he commented on "owning" the skies with jets,missiles, nuclear weapons, and other stuff?? I have heard elsewhere that this is true--that IF Hitler had just been able to prolong the war another year or so--that the V-9 (new york rocket, possibly armed with something other than TNT), several jet fighters AND bombers, nuclear bombs, long-range bombers that could reach the US(perhaps jet powered) and such--WOULD have been available and plentiful to the third reich. Had this happened--

Would the result had been different??

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JSouth1
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several jet fighters AND bombers, nuclear bombs, long-range bombers that could reach the US(perhaps jet powered) and such--WOULD have been available and plentiful to the third reich. Had this happened--
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It IS interesting to sit back and think about the possibilities. Hitler was in the Army in WWI. He thought that he could conquer Europe with his Army and perhaps the world too. You can do a lot with an army but if you want to conquer the world you need a Navy.

The British navy had his access to vital materials in Africa blocked off.The Americans had his access to Japan restricted. He needed raw material from Africa to build A-bombs and to build decent engines for his Me 262 Jet fighter. The best the Germans could hope for with a 262 was for it's engines to last one hour of flight time. That was not due to poor design, it was due to lack of quality materials.The engines could not withstand the high heat they generated.

As far as A-bombs went both England and the USA knew what he needed to invent and produce them. Any facility even remotely related to their production was made top priority for the bombers. Hitler and Goering delayed the production of the 262 because they thought it would not be necessary. Even when they did finally allow production they wanted to make it a bomber and not a fighter.That caused even more delays.

A German general once said " When the going got tough the British and the Americans called on their sons of bitches." " When the going got tough for Hitler he called on his sycophants." In other words the Allies called on their tough leaders in all services,to get the job done whereas Hitler called on his bureaucrats and lobbyists who would tell him only what they thought he wanted to hear. I'm sure Hitler probably did not have what we call lobbyists but I'm positive he had the German equivalent of them.

I've no doubt that the Germans would have thrown a few surprises at the allies but WWII was pretty much lost before it even began. HOWEVER... if Hitler had made fewer mistakes he could have pulled off a victory for Germany. The Nazi obsession with exterminating Jews tied up a lot of valuable resources that Germany did not have. The trains they used to transport them prevented vital supplies from reaching both fronts.

Hitler did have some successful ideas but otherwise he should have left the fighting to the generals. When he did listen he listened to the wrong people. He had too much faith in Goering who commanded the Luftwaffe. it was not until the end of the war that he hated Goering for lying to him. Goering threw away the lives of his outstanding pilots and when they had little success against 50 to one odds he accused them of being incompetent cowards.

I'll end it here. I could keep going on and on about the mistakes both sides made. Hitler was not the only insane leader during that period. Stalin made so many mistakes due to his being paranoid that he almost lost the war anyway. The only reason he prevailed was because the USA was sending him supplies AND he had a vast resource of people willing to die to defend their country. Supplies are nice to have but you still have to have committed people and the Russians certainly were.

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One of the saddest things I saw when I lived in Germany was a tombstone I saw in a hidden Jewish section of the Schweinfurt Stadt cemetary. Virtually all major cemetaries had a Jewish section and they were commonly fenced off from the main cemetary for unknown to me reasons (maybe to protect them from the ultra right?). In this one section I found many stones of German Jews who had died in WW1. One was huge with a lot of verbage about how the guy had died protecting his beloved fatherland. The ultimate irony is in all likelihood his parents were murdered by Hitler 20 years or so later.

The point is how many of the Jews murdered by Hitler would have gladly died for Germany or worked for victory in the factories? Insanity run amock....

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One of the sadest things I saw when I lived in Germany was a tombstone I saw in a hidden Jewish section of the Schweinfurt Stadt cemetary. Virtually all major cemetaries had a Jewish sectiona nd they were commonly fenced off from the main cemetary for unknown to me reasons (maybe to protect them from the ultra right?). In this one section I found many stones of German Jews who had died in WW1. One was huge with a lot of verbage about how the guy had died protecting his beloved fatherland. The ultimate irony is in all likelihood his parents were murdered by Hitler 20 years or so later.

The point is how many of the Jews murdered by Hitler would have gladly died for Germany or worked for victory in the factories? Insanity run amock....


Thanks for posting dtecba! Hitler needed a scapegoat to win support for himself. he was elected to his position by the people of Germany but then used that election to grab full control of that country, making himself a dictator and cancelling elections. We need to remember that lesson here in the USA regardless of who is in office and regardless of whether we like them or not...

One little known fact that is almost never mentioned. When Hitler invaded the USSR he restored religious freedom, EXCEPT for Jews, in the conquered territories. This caused Stalin no end of trouble when he tried taking those territories back. The people who had been granted those freedoms back fought for Germany. Stalin was forced to end the campaign against religion. Further blunders by Hitler caused those people to fight for Russia again but some fought to the bitter end anyway for Germany.

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Hitler caused a massive exodus of a great deal of his population, not limited to the Jews. Many of them men of fighting age. More importantly however were the skilled workers, scientists , educators, doctors and intellectuals that he lost. However I do not believe he could have scared, motivated or conned Germany into belligerency without making scapegoats for the population to rally against and hate.

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Well the American Atomic bombs would have been dropped on Germany rather than Japan, we all know that for sure.

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