What would've happened if the Germans won?
I mean the direct consequences of the Whermacht winning Stalingrad battle.
Would Stalin ever have surrendered?
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This has been discussed thousands of times before. The conclusion is always the same and I have no doubt it is true. Here is a succient summary-
IF (a big IF indeed) the Whermacht had won the battle; then the Soviets would have simply pulled back and consolidated thereby preventing the already overstretched German forces from advancing much further. The Germans would have gained access to some very large oilfields but that would not have helped them much; if at all as their refining capacity was pretty much at its limits anyway. Allied aerial bombing would have continued to diminish that capacity. Therefore, a German victory at Stalingrad would not have extended the war much longer.
The only chance the Germans had would have been to do as General Paulus had previously recommended; withdraw BEFORE the battle and consolidate their position in a more strategically defensible location. As the German soldiers actually lost at Stalingrad would then still have been available for defense (in this alternative scenario) then the Whermacht could have persisted much longer; perhaps even winning the Battle of Kursk (presuming the battle would have been fought in this alternative scenario).
Nevertheless, even under these "ideal" conditions there is no doubt the German Army would have been pushed out of the U.S.S.R. simply due to attrition-the Soviet Army had far more people (men and women) available and the mechanization of the Red Army was beginning to reach frutation due to internal arms production and Allied military shipments through Murmansk and Persia. Even had the Germans somehow maintained a military "status quo" that situation would have quickly disappeared once the atomic bombs were developed in the summer of 1945. So, there is no way the Whermacht could have won the war; even had they won the Battle of Stalingrad. Hence, the noticeable lack of interest in that
epic battle nowadays.
Thanks for this rather laborious reply.
What IF the Germans DID have time to consolidate after taking of Stalingrad, they DID somehow manage to link up with the Afrikakorps, gaining access to the Iraqi , Middle Eastern Oil Fields, then went down through Afanistan and India and manage to link up with the Japanese.
Now all the Allies have to do is surrender.
Why?
Britain has now lost all her access to her colonies, without the British accessing the Mediteranean Sea, which is now a Mare Nostrum for the Germans, they don't have much to do other then agree to negociate a peace treaty with Hitler.
Here's the situation :
Russia's resources are crumbling, the man power is one thing, having no fuel and your supplies being blown away by a still formidable Luftwaffe can be troublesome in the long run.
The Manpower problem is solved by various Kasselschlact, in which the Germans capture hundreds of thousands of men , tons of equipment and without the "gain ground" objective in mind, only the "destroy the Red Army" objective, the Whermacht can after all expect to kill off Russia in this attrition, now that they've stopped advancing, they can consolidate into a ferm ring of steel around Moscow that stretches from the Baltic Sea to the Caucasus.
The Americans are now facing a German occupied Europe and their supply routes towards the Soviets, through Turkey have now been officially severed by the Link-up of German forces. The material that was getting through to the Soviets now is falling in german hands.
They too are forced to negociate peace.
End of World War with the Axis Powers in control of 70 % of the world.
The history books praise German generals and Japanese generals now.
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Well, interesting hypothesis. Undoubtably the Allied strategic planners looked at this scenario during the war. I know, without a doubt, the linkage to the Japanese through India definitely WAS considered a threat; this was detailed in Louis Mountbatten's memoirs (he was Allied Supreme Commander in the Burma theater). However, this threat came nowhere close to being fulfilled. There simply was too much army and area for the Japanese to occupy before they could get even close to the German forces in Russia.
Same with the German forces in Africa. Long before the Battle of Stalingrad was decided these forces were on the defensive. Even at the height of their ascendency they were nowhere close or powerful enough to have a realistic chance of linking up with the German forces in the Soviet Union.
The Germans were never able to get close enough to Moscow to deliver an air strike against that city. An occupation of that city was simply beyond their capability (unable to provide sufficient force and logistical support at that distance). Even if, by some miracle (such as an internal coup against Stalin) the Soviet Union had somehow tripped up and provided the German forces the opportunity to conquer Moscow it is somewhat beyond belief that the Soviet Government would not take the counter offensive and force the exhausted German forces out of the city; pretty much as they did against Napoleon.
And, ultimately, even if the Germans had managed to win all of these battles (some of which they did not even come close to) they still were unable to successfully cope with the Allied aerial bombardment; and certainly would have been unable to cope against nuclear weapons. The nuclear weapons would not only have included the atomic bombs developed in 1945 but also fusion bombs (H-Bombs) that would undoubtably have been developed much sooner after 1945 than they actually were (had Nazi Germany somehow staved off surrender after the first few atomic bombs were used on it).
The little praise that history books give Axis generals now is too much. There really were no redeeming qualities about any of them except perhaps Yamamoto; who warned his superiors, before the attack on Pearl Harbor, that they were about to wake up a "sleeping giant". The best thing the other Axis generals could have done would have been to defect!!
Who decided that the Afrikakorps should play the defensive?
Hitler.
Who decided that Rommel should make do with what obsolete equipment he had?
Hitler.
Who decided not to send reinforcements to Afrikakorps?
Hitler.
Who decided to attack Russia when England wasn't subjugated?
Hitler.
Who decided that at Dunquerkue, the British Expeditionary Force shouldn't be annihilated for this was a gentleman's war after all?
Hitler.
In a direct sense, he lost his own much desired world war.
He didn't played Starcraft when he was a kid.
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Well put! Good posting! I would just like to add one thing:
Even if Hitler had acted semi-properly on the points you alluded to the end result would have been the same: The defeat and destruction of the Axis Powers. There was NO way the U.S. could have been defeated or would have reverted back to neutrality. And, our military; especially the Air branches (Army Air Corps, Navy, etc) along with the United Kingdom's Royal Air Force would have ultimately won the war-which, in fact, they did. The Russian front was big, but really not that important. The important fact was that the Luftwaffe was poorly managed and could not stop the bombings. The Third Reich could field soldiers on the ground near Stalingrad (quite a distance away), but could not stop bombers at 6 miles up from destroying cities IN THE MIDDLE OF GERMANY AT THE "HEIGHT" OF THE THIRD REICH'S MILITARY STRENGTH!!
In fact, had the air campaign in Europe been just a little better coordinated the THIRD REICH would have had to surrender in 1943! This would have been effected by the comprehensive bombing of the European oil refineries. The effort at "D-Day" and "Battle of the Bulge" and all that baloney would not have been needed!! The Allied Air Power campaign was so awesome that the generals did not know how to effectively use it!!
The battles of Leningrad, Moscow, and Stalingrad were so unimportant they hardly deserve to be mentioned. It was the air campaign (something the Soviets were unable to perform) that won, or lost, the war. Hitler was such a blittering idiot (as the previous poster so well point out) that he did not realize this until his last days in his bunker.
doubt that, without hitler hand, the luftwaffe would be able to deploy it's fighters and God knows what more that would either prevent the bombings and landins or even destroy nearby airfields and Aircraft carriers. Defeat the us.. maybe not soon. Saying they were the allmighty.. really what % of the german force the americans fought? That almost got theyr a$$es beaten in monte casino with the help of several other nations..
shareYour English is not good-so broken up and fragmentary that it is hard to understand the syntax; nevertheless I will reply, again, to this thread.
The Americans fought 100% of the German forces and won. That is, 100% of all the meaningful German forces-which was the Luftwaffe (and the little bit of the German Navy that constituted any sort of threat; which were the U-Boats of course). The result was that the Americans defeated the Germans in all areas of importance. NO if, ands, or buts about it. Quite simply the United States won that war (the war in Europe) virtually by itself-with a little assitance from the British and some, quite frankly, unwelcome assistance from the Soviet Union. There were a few misteps early in the war (such as the Monte Casino battle you refered to) but these were simply part of the learing process. After a while.......the United States had total domination.
And, after the war in Europe was over, the United States then won the war in the Pacific totally unassisted. No greater country than the United States of America has ever existed and no greater one than the United States will ever exist in the future. The facts speak for themselves.
As proud to be an American as I am this is not true. The Russians paid a heavy cost and bore large burden of the fight on the eastern front. The English and her commonwealth allies may have been kicked out of Europe, but held their own in the Africa and parts of the Pacific. The Chinese people also paid a heavy price. as far as I'm concerned we get our share of the credit, but it was a team effort by a number of nations.
shareI understand your reasoning and must admit that for a number of years I followed the same train of thought. I changed my mind (actually reverted back to my original opinion) only recently. I should elaborate so let me do so now.
1. Yes, the Soviets paid a very heavy cost (the most of any country) in that war. However, most of that was due to disorganization; most of those deaths were not necessary to stop the German Army. Rather, due to the 1930s purges of the Red Army leadership, the Red Army did not have the necessary equipment and skills to do their job. With a little better organization and leadership an adequate defense could have been mounted with far fewer losses.
2. The United Kingdom did hold its own in Africa (though I do not know if that really helped) and in parts of the Pacific though they were not able to "break out" of their strategic redoubts until the U.S. assisted them. They were mainly ineffectual in the area where it really counted- which was strategic (as well as tactical) aerial bombing. They bombed at night and therefore most of those bombs were wasted. Later in the war they were effective but used techniques so terrible (firestorm bombing) that one could question the morality of their effort. Churchill refused to believe the U.S. bombing could be effective; until he saw that it was. Still, he did not advocate his Bomber Command performing joint operations with the U.S. Army Air Forces 8th Bomber Group (in other words the U.K. could have bombed heavily defended targets at night when the defenses were minimal; thereby destroying most of the enemy aerial defenses; thus making it easier for the precision daylight raid conducted by the US the next day). On the logistics front- it was the US Navy (and Merchant ships) that kept the Atlantic logistics pipeline open and flowing to the U.K. Remember the Liberty Ships? D-Day would have been impossible without the U.S. And, without D-Day and the subsequent western front the Soviets would have eventually conquered and occupied ALL of Europe!
3. Conversely, had it not been for Allied bombing it is highly doubtful the Germans would have lost the Eastern Front. They might not have conquered all of the Soviet Union but I am sure they could have held on to a lot of it. With the U.S. logistical support, though, the Soviets were able to obtain the equipment and other supplies needed to stop the German advance. Even Khrushev said that without American Spam (for food) the Red Army would not have been able to sustain itself. With American bombing-long before we actually put troops on the Continent- the German supply chain was being destroyed and they were unable to continue with some of their operations; or had to continue them at a reduced pace.
4. Had the U.S (and U.K.) concentrated on bombing oil refineries in the summer of 1943 the war would have been over by Christmas of that year. It would have taken 6 weeks of concentrated bombing to destroy German oil production and 6 weeks after that for what was in the pipelines to run dry. Unfortunately that was not done (a concentrated campaign with that specific purpose) so the killing continued for another two years. In other words, the American bombing campaign won the war in both theaters but our aerial force was so powerful that it could actually have won the war even earlier. Unfortunately that was not done.
5. The Chinese people paid a heavy price but it was American power that won the Pacific War. That is even more evident in that theater of operations than in Europe. And, in fact, was why the Soviets could not occupy Japan as they did with Austria and Germany. Had Roosevelt been a little more knowledgeable about the matter he would not have provided any assistance to the Soviets. That would have let the Soviets been even more torn up by Germany and unable to advance into Europe. The destruction of the Germany nation would still have taken place by air power except in that scenario there would not have been any occupation by a dictatorial power in Eastern Europe in the post war era. However, I do not blame Roosevelt for doing what he did. The true effectiveness of air power was not demonstrated until the 1943 time frame-by which point we were already supply the Soviets with supplies. Still, it makes for an interesting "alternate history" plot.
Hope this explains my previous comment.
I read a book on the battle of Stalingrad and for the first half of it, it seemed that the Germans would win the war, let alone capture Stalingrad. As a matter of fact, the Germans at times held about 90% of the city, but the Soviet defenders tenaciously resisted. It would have been possible for the Germans to break out in the early days of the encirclement of Operation Uranus, but once winter was in full swing, the Sixth Army had no chance of survival. Most of the malnourished, sleep-deprived and sick Germans would have been reluctant to leave their bunkers in a breakout attempt. They were simply too weak to venture out into the deep snow with their heavy equipment with no cover from Russian artillery or snipers.
Could the Germans have captured Stalingrad? Yes. Would it have caused the collapse of the Soviet Union? Probably not. The Germans would have been too overextended to capture, let alone hold, the major oil fields in the caucuses. In the early days of the Soviet invasion when Stalin was considering making a separate peace with the Germans as Lenin had done 23 years before, one of his advisers said that the Red army may have to initially retreat to the Urals, but in the end the Motherland would be Victorious. The Red army had a massive amount of land to fall back on, but Germany was fighting a war on two fronts, and a third if you count the air war over Germany.
Perhaps if the Germans had fought the Russians alone and America had refused to aid the Soviets, they would have had a chance of winning the war in the east if they could have devoted ALL their resources and manpower towards the defeat of the Soviet union. Germany was spread out horrible thin in WWII, a lot worse than they had been in WWI. Perhaps if Hitler didn't have to deal with the Western allies simultaneously on the North African and later the Italian and Western fronts, Stalin could have been defeated. The Soviet Air force also did not have the strategic bombing capabilities that the British and Americans
had. So, it is likely that if the Germans had been fighting the Russians alone, Wartime production would not have been significantly disrupted. Also, the importance of the amount of aid that America had given the Soviet Union can't be overlooked. America had given the Russians a significant amount of food aid as well as a massive amount of vehicles. The latter helps to explain why the Red army was as mobile as it was in 1944 during Operation Bagration.
Still, we can only speculate what might have been. The fact of the matter was that Hitler bit off a lot more than he could chew when he attacked the Soviet Union and the two front war against the USSR and the Western Allies was destined to fail. Despite the early successes, the Soviet defenses in Stalingrad held and never again would the Germans be able to force a significant Soviet retreat.
Very good synopsis of the Eastern Front; particulary of the Battle of Stalingrad. I believe there is an error where you wrote "In the early days of the Soviet invasion when Stalin was considering making a separate peace with the Germans as Lenin had done 23 years before, ...." I believe you meant to write "In the early days of the invasion of the Soviet Union" but otherwise quite insightful.
The modern day German government (and most Germans) take the position that the 1933 - 1945 government was a "criminal regime". Though I initially believed they are ducking some responsibility with that remark I now do believe it to be true. Criminals have and observe no code or law. They will murder and steal as much as they can until they are stopped. That is a very good description of the actions of the Hitler led government. Long after he had exhausted any legitimate demands (which were agreed to by the unsuspecting Western governments); he still kept killing and taking. Hollywood has long overglamorized that regime and the war that it caused; which is why I like this non-Hollywood film. It shows the true brutality of war and the fact that no matter how much the West justifiably hated the Soviet Union- we have to admit the German regime of that time was much worse.
The world owes America a hell of a lot - all its freedoms and liberty, and all its material wealth. There will never be a country as great as America - FACT
shareRegarding the german war effort, what many are forgetting that during the height of the Stalingrad and kursk campaigns, Hitler's regime was still transporting millionsof civilians across europe into the industrialised death camps. That must have taken up a lot of resources in manpower, fuel, trains, equipment etc It was totally unnecessary and hampered their campaign
Re the USA flag waving on here, please take a chill pill. The ending of that brutal war was a joint effort by all those involved. Remember the majority of the fighting during WW2 took place in the east, If the Soviets had not been fighting so many of the Axis forces, D-Day may not have been as successful as it was, if the Germans had more men at their disposal.
Re joestone99uk comment above. During WW2 wasnt it documented that the German POWs were actually treated better than the African American soldiers who were guarding them? The US constitution of the Founding Fathers decreed that blacks were 3/5th human and denied rights as a result. The genocide against the native americans along with the evil system of slavery both lasting several centuries, is one aspect of its history that puts freedoms and liberty to shame. Some argued that they influenced hitler, who believed in racial inferiorities. The most formidable western nation in the world practiced it, and only became truly democratic in the 1960s, 20 years after the war
That is true as well. Throughout the entire war in the east Jews and other "undesirables," as the Nazis called them, were transported in large numbers to death and forced labor camps. As a matter of fact, a lot of front line commanders in the German army complained about this misuse of resources that could have gone to the war effort. I've always believed that the whole Nazi racial ideology crippled the whole war effort. Perhaps if the Germans acted as liberators, and not as conquerers, they would have been able to succeed in the East. The Ukrainians at first welcomed the Germans as liberators as they had suffered greatly under collectivization, and they would have fought with the Germans if it meant obtaining an independent Ukraine. Hitler, however, would have had to make promises that went against his racial ideology. To him, they were subhumans who were best suited to be ignorant slaves. Instead of being sent to Siberia for forced labor, they were simply sent in the opposite direction to Germany for forced labor.
Also, it is true that while the US defeated Japan largely by itself, the defeat of Germany was the result of joint effort by the Western allies and the Soviets. After all, the Soviet Union did bear the brunt of the German war effort for most of the conflict. Who knows? maybe if Hitler had honored his non aggression pact with Stalin it would have been a lot more difficult, if not impossible, to dislodge the Germans from Western Europe. But, we can only speculate.
And it is also true that America, like pretty much every other country, has had dark moments in its past. America had race slavery, and dispossessed the indigenous people. It also had a rigid system of segregation in the South and interned Americans of Japanese decent during the war. The British, America's chief western ally had also done things that went against its democratic values. For centuries they had mistreated the Irish and exploited the people the inhabited their colonies. They saw it as their duty to "civilize" the worlds colored races and couldn't comprehend why those who resisted them would let them "help" them. Throughout the war America and Britain had to convince the rest of the world that they were the good guys in this conflict and that positive change would come about if they won. True, it did take a while but eventually the gap between the democratic theory and the democratic practice for both Britain and America lessened significantly.
By the time the US and Britain invaded at Normandy, the Soviets had driven the Germans out of nearly all of the USSR. The US delay was intentional. The German army was severely depleted from the years of fighting in the East.
shareRegarding the atomic bombs, do you think the Alericans would have invented them as early as 1945 had they not been able to access the atomic power research of the Germans assuming germans held the line till then in this alternative scenario? Surely they would have invented them sooner or later, but given the advances Germans made towards balistic rockets at that time, given more time they may have had a fighting chance.
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