A History Teacher Reacts | "Germany Could Not Win WW2" by Potential History

hey youtube welcome back to another history teacher reacts video with mr terry as i continue my search for historical knowledge here on the internet all right today's video is germany could not win world war ii by potential history uh this video was uh chosen by the patreon pledgers this video won out narrowly so it was chosen by them if this is something you'd like to participate to all patreon pledgers no matter what to your level get to participate in polls for videos that get kind of fast-tracked onto this channel here so this sounds like an interesting topic germany could not win world war ii it's it's a question i've kind of seen popped up in um during you know either live premieres or live streams or on the discord just kind of like could germany have have won the war like or were they destined to lose so mission to see what they kind of bring up here um and maybe give my perspective on it um these types of questions i think are really interesting um to think about necessarily would change history but um just i guess i guess just lessons in there in general okay all right well with that if you like the original video make sure you go and uh like and subscribe down below because the link to the original video will be down there be sure to give potential history your support if you like this video if you would like to join me on my kind of continued journey for history i'm on youtube love to have you as a subscriber as well so let's go ahead and get started germany could not win world war ii always start with futurama awesome there i finished fine-tuning my what if machine it can answer any what if question accurate to within what great show future possibility who wants the machine to show them an alternate reality oh i want to know if germany wins if hitler stops making decisions who else has a question for the what if machine i have one do they win if they mars produce the mouse tank hey what do you say when are they mars produce the mouse tank okay make that machine show me what would happen if they took moscow all right they took moscow still just russia over and over people love rooting for the underdog these stories strike a chord with us at a very basic level and you can tell this by how popular these stories are in media this also translates to real world stories although real life does not have a plot that always turns in the underdogs favor so there's this kind of romanticism connected to fighting for a lost cause that a lot of people assigned to a lot of real world groups one of these you see talked about a lot is the german army world war ii that if only dumb hitler hadn't been in charge or if different choices were made that the war would have turned out different and a lot of these arguments seem to hold water on the surface but upon reflection mostly missed the point or do not make a significant enough change to sway anything so the original question here specifically about hitler hitler could not win world war ii or sorry germany could not win world war ii because of hitler hopefully get some clarity there these are my favorite how germany could have won scenarios and how they're wrong um that's actually a good question too i don't know if they'll they'll get to it too but a question i've heard is um could germany have won world war ii even if the americans had not joined right that would be a good question to talk about too i hear this one all the time that if the germans had just driven onto moscow and taken it the russians would have capitulated but it is rarely backed up with evidence as to why even in the memphis german they constantly mentioned that the drive to moscow would have meant victory in the east and i think the reason for this is that they model the russian campaign after the french campaign yeah if you take paris right that's the the thing they said if you take paris france falls which kind of happens um but that might be a false equivalence equivalency there each campaign in 1940 the french surrender once paris is cut off from its forces and looks like it's about to fall using this model a lot of people think that the exact same would apply to russia the only problem with this is russia is a whole different animal both politically and geographically true stalin was going to put every man woman and child in the soviet union between him and the advancing germans and this is exemplified by the red army fought the war often trading casualties for time so if moscow was taken sure it's a political and also logistical defeat given that the rail network was centered around it but no way do i think stalin is just going to shrug and say well we tried after i would agree all right sorry he's finishing his point there but this is something i would agree with france and russia are very very different um in so many reasons but yeah i mean stalin just stalling himself rather than you know charles de gaulle or somebody in the west it's going to be a very different um scenario with wisdom i mean we already saw what he was willing to do with uh casualties and lives like he was saying the the price of time versus lives was something stalin was um had no issue with had no issue dealing with after moscow was taken and with that we would probably see the soviet union fighting to the bitter end just like the germans did in reality this is also backed up by real world history from napoleon's russia campaign in 1812 where he went on to take moscow but still lost the war russia is such a large and vast country that they have the ability to trade casualties and land at a higher rate than any other country can and therefore the normal rules of war such as taking the capital and ensuring victory do not apply are they not seeing this okay so they're going points of why they couldn't win the war um taking moscow so basically taking moscow would not have ensured a victory i would agree with that for sure hillary should have listened to his generals and that is why they couldn't win because he didn't listen to his generals okay i see i see another commonly heard point is that hitler made terrible decisions and he should have just listened to his generals now i'm not here to defend adolf hitler he's a crazy genocidal maniac let's not make two ways about it but this isn't always the case for example hitler and the high command were all in agreement on invading russia they all very much wanted to in their eyes destroy communism and save germany as hitler laid out in his book but once this effort was undertaken hitler and his generals began to disagree at times on what moves needed to be made sure and once the war is over employee gets fired many generals and their memoirs begin to claim that hitler made all the bad decisions and that if he had just listened to them the war would have been one yeah and one example of this i already hinted at in the former poor stated hitler's generals were convinced that taking moscow would end the war for many erroneous reasons i listed previously for hitler moscow was a general direction in which to head but was not the final objective for him the resources in the ukraine and the oil fields beyond were a much more important target yeah that makes sense um i don't and i don't think parrot like going back to the paris thing i don't think paris is or sorry uh moscow is important to russia as paris probably was to france um most because so many of the industrial centers like they're saying was in the west right in in in the western um part of the soviet union like the ukraine for example and then also down south where you're going to get oil fields and stuff it has a huge economic importance um france is completely built around paris right um so not to say that like moscow is not important it's incredibly important and it's the administrative center of things but yeah i would agree with i would agree kind of with what they're saying that actually goes back to the other point too so um so his so hitler they're kind of saying hitler was actually right on that one actually right to not listen to the advisors that taking moscow would just make russia fall i actually agree with [Music] what hitler's thinking here and given germany's oil shortages this is a good example of where hitler was right and his generals were wrong and actually a lot of hitler's so-called mistakes start to make a whole lot more sense once you put it into the context of germany's fuel shortages and if you want more information on this tick did an excellent video on germany's oil problem that you should really check out another example of this sentiment being wrong is operation citadel um oil was such a an issue for germany but especially japan too because they had that huge navy and not nearly enough oil reserves both have just the militaries that they can't fuel on their own they can't and those oil fields in this western soviet union and eastern europe kind of southeastern europe there were so vital in for japan going down to like the philippines and other parts and parts of southeast asia for oil that right there could be a reason why germany couldn't win world war ii as the resources they couldn't especially if you're fighting the giant coalition of nations like they were and same with japan by the way sorry for this i got this shot this this light coming through my window don't worry it's not your camera or it's not your screen it's not your camera it's just light [ __ ] upon me 1943 hitler's generals convinced him that an attack on the cursed bulge would [ __ ] the red army and renew germany's initiative in the war hitler saw this plan as very flawed though famously saying every time i think about operation citadel my stomach turns over and seeing how poorly this turned out for the german suicide premonition was nearly correct now if this was the caricature of hitler always overriding his generals that is commonly seen citadel would have been called off before it was launched now these are just two quick examples and yes there are times especially they also kind of had to do that though at that time of the war though i mean they were already like they had to have some kind of big offensive in in contrast to what was happening otherwise all we do is just sit and sit and just lose lose lose lose right it's kind of like the last maybe big last-ditch effort later in the war where hitler overrules his generals with poor decisions the battle the bulge comes to mind but early in the war when these decisions really count hitler is many times making the right decisions when overruling his generals or going along with him in agreement of a common goal so hitler should have just listened to his generals and he would have won the war is a moot point because many times he did and his generals were wrong and many times he didn't and he turned out to be right it's all adolf hitler out of hitler alif hitler just before okay so that camp the germany could not win because hitler didn't listen to his journals that that doesn't work that point doesn't work um because as you can see there were things he was right about that they were wrong about and then things they were wrong and hitler was right about so that's that's a wash right there that that i don't think that could support either side of that argument personally this is actually a point i used to subscribe to a very honest critique of the german war economy is that it was not on the right footing and people make this argument usually saying things like germany should have just made more panzer fours instead of pouring resources into the tiger or germany should have built the luftwaffe back up so they could regain air superiority and now again just the german war economy you can't just just do that it's it's like people say man you're poor why don't you why don't a country's poor why don't they just like print more money well you can't just do that it's not possible right you're limited there are things outside of your control economy in many places was an absolute nightmare john parshall does an excellent lecture on tank production in world war two and real what's that say hold on quantity quantity quantity high quality components low quality components high quality components okay are these just is a slide they're doing just tanks horizontal organizational organization vertical organization yeah if you look at vertical versus horizontal economic development you'll look into that you'll you'll see more about that that was something i used to talk about a lot during the industrial revolution my industrial revolution lessons or i mean i still do but especially when i was talking about um when i was teaching american history we got few models long runs few models long runs many probably models short runs so they didn't stick they're saying the germans didn't stick with their good models they too many models i mean there can be reasons for that though semi are unskilled labor semi highly specialized i mean the germans are incredible engineers all right really highlights how backwards the german production process was for armored vehicle manufacturing it mentions how that let's let's look at this graph again okay so this is vehicle production so germany's way down there okay backwards the german so you can see here um the the germans parshall does an excellent lecture on tank production in world war two and really highlights how bad okay so you can see the german and british production is pretty similar there so if this was just a war if you're talking about about production or resources if this is just a war between germany and britain that could be a different story but the fact that america and russia are involved and completely out produce the germans i mean that's that's that's a case right there that germany couldn't win resource wise can't do all three i mean maybe not even just the americans are just the the russians if it was just the british then yeah backwards the german production process was for armored vehicle manufacturing that's impressive look at the the russian production um eventually out produced the americans it mentions how that but i mean they did say though that the the russian stuff was lesser quality though knowledge can be applied to other types of war manufacturing and although once spear takes over production is streamlined to a degree and munitions and weapons production goes up year by year it's not near where it needs to be to fight this attritional war so obviously the solution i love the camouflage it's not near where it wants to be to fight this a traditional war no no tank no tank there no tank there move along so obviously the solution is to just streamline production sort of how you see in the american model and this would have given germany a better chance in the war although this is a good criticism it misses the core issue the biggest thing germany was running low on from 1942 onward is as i mentioned before oil and larger numbers of tanks and planes wouldn't be any good if there was no fuel to run them also germany was having manpower shortages as early as 1942 or 43 and along with fuel to run these machines you need people to crew them so they can out produce because the engineering is so strong the production is so incredible in germany they can out produce their population and their fuel reserves so it doesn't matter like he's saying doesn't doesn't matter these are just two issues that cannot be remedied by streamlining production at a certain point germany is just going to be out of oil and out of men and no amount of additional tanks or planes would operationally be possible what's the matter run out of gas kinda embarrassing just coordinate with japan the thing is though like okay how do you i mean right away how do you even coordinate on different sides of the planet i mean yeah you only have russia between the two of you um but coordinating i don't know how much coordination you could honestly do that's just my initial thoughts but let's see what he says this is another point that deceptively seems to make a lot of sense as germany was crushed by a two-front war it stands to reason that if japan and germany through their alliance had coordinated an attack on russia they would have won and that may honestly be true a big boost to the defense of moscow came after russian troops from siberia were sent west after the russo-japanese non-aggression pact yeah okay so russo-japanese war i mean the japanese have already shown in somewhat recent history um that they can beat the russians it did substantially in the russo japanese war but what i'm just trying to think you're thinking there germany has way more to gain from an alliance with japan than japan does with germany because japan's focus is on asia not not russia especially i mean eastern russia who cares um they had already gotten what they need from from the east there was nothing really more i could think the the japan japanese would get that would be of more value than their other interests in in the eastern hemisphere so all right the only problem with this is that coordination did not and was never going to happen germany and japan were allies by circumstance and shared no real common goals with each other and in fact they're operating in opposition to each other at times german training of chinese troops in the 30s as they were fighting the japanese is a direct example of this in short neither side was going to stick out its neck for the other in fact russia is a common enemy was probably the only pretty lame which they would have and even then they did not really care about it the reason for japan not wanting to do this is mostly colored by the japanese experience against the soviets at the battle of kankengal please forgive my pronunciation where the red army gave the imperial army a very bloody nose in an undeclared border conflict this incident convinced the japanese to not go through with any action that would provoke the soviet union as they did not want war with them since they were already fighting china and would soon be fighting the united states this avoidance of provoking the soviet union went far enough that during the war in the pacific between japan and the united states the japanese refused to sink any u.s merchant ships headed to the soviet union so the japanese attacking the soviet union directly flies in the face of the intentions and characteristics of the japanese high command to the point where it strays out of potential history kill yourself into the realm of fantasy you have screwed me again japan okay so yeah just make make an alliance there i mean they did that that was probably the best the alliance that the best that alliance could have been there so that doesn't help yeah that wouldn't help there's no way japan would give more help or yeah care about it more wonderful that's my favorite one if they had just made insert ridiculous design here the war may have plenty of that it's the idea that this thing or this thing or this thing would somehow have single-handedly lengthened the war there are a few fan favorites for picks of these the one i see most often being the mouse the ridiculous 200-ton behemoth that in reality would have been awesome target practice for allied fighter bombers and something for allied soldiers to gawk at once it had run out of fuel and had to be abandoned but remember they can't fuel those things too much fuel one of those would need at a time especially when they don't have it be useless yeah be cool i guess for them and useful potentially if you had the resources but it's not useful the toy without the batteries or german jet aircraft that although cutting edge and superior to what the allies had still couldn't have been applied in a large scale due to the aforementioned fuel and personnel problems and the list for these things goes on and on a personal pet peeve of mine in this category is the what-if question about the german atomic program and the claim that if they had applied themselves the germans could have come up with an atomic weapon first this notion though just like that of japan invading russia very quickly falls into the category of fantasy once looked at for three main reasons one many of germany's hold on i i want to hear this but yeah i really want to hear this these reasons could people talk about what if what if germany had the atomic bomb right um like would they would adolf hitler have used it it's been a big discussion question but the more important question is could they have had a bomb or at least could they have had one before anyone else did i'm hoping that's what he kind of addresses here story of fantasy once looked at for three main reasons one many of germany's top scientists were expelled in the 30s for being jewish automatically limiting einstein right they lost yeah they lost their brightest minds to that good point german atomic capabilities and actually many of these scientists went on to work in the american nuclear program so to make this win scenario work you automatically have to make the nazis tolerant of jews which is not going to happen two the german atomic program has all but canceled by 1942. as spear put it we got the view that the development was very much at the beginning the physicists themselves didn't want to put much into it which works into my third point that okay maybe they'll say in the third point but uh um so i i needed i need to learn more about what the german progress on an atomic bomb would have been like because i was not really sure um the of the specifics but are they saying they're basically it's 42 he said they they did they give up though because i mean this the scientists give up because they just didn't think it was possible did they give up because they didn't think it would be useful like it would actually work um or yeah be worth the money be worth their time i would like to know a little bit more about that if you if you have any info about that i'd love to hear it um why specifically did the germans give up on their atomic program all right let's continue but looks like we got a another ad coming in the physicists themselves didn't want to put much into it which works into my third point that hitler saw atomic sciences jewish are you tired of the media spinning the truth and pushing false narratives well take a look at this over the last three years nice push science and pointed the focus which works into my third point that hitler saw atomic science's jewish science and pointed the focus of german development towards conventional weapons so we're not even talking about an atomic race between the us and germany as it was barely being pursued by the germans and to give a what-if scenario about it would fly directly in the face of what hitler stood for well i'm more interested though in okay if hitler thought it would be useful because i mean are they trying to say that hit if hitler had an atomic bomb he would not have been interested in it like if if it happened if the scientists had continued right because i'm actually more interested to know why did their science industry give up on it because that's kind of the point he was making earlier not necessarily that hitler killed the program because i think that again but an insanity because it would have been a jewish production um are we saying that if he had it he would not have used it because that i know i don't know about that i'd love to hear your thoughts um you can put them in youtube comments um a great discussion uh much better if you want more of a discussion would be to join our discord server if you have not joined our discord server there's a link down below my world war ii channel in there is very very active so i'd love to hear some opinions on that and this gets into the bigger problem with this question that even if germany does produce these wonder weapons and extends the war it's only going to extend it long enough to be the first country to get nuked due to the germany first policy of the allies are you making this jet plane or remote control [Music] okay we'll let it figure out here but um what i mean okay other than atomic weaponry what could what is a feasible wonder weapon though a an efficient effective one given the resources that they had we already talked about the fuel shortage so that already hurts the ideas of tanks and some of these uh aircraft that they were talking about what could there have possibly been and again outside of atomic weaponry that could have actually been useful now these are just a handful of points that people bring up when talking about how germany could have won but there are many more that i didn't go into that are equally baseless such as the germans should have and could have invaded england even though the kriegsmarine would not be able to support a large amphibious attack and the much larger royal navy would have probably sunk the invading force before it even reached the shores i've i've heard that just recently discussed i think i saw a video pop on my feet about like why didn't they just invade anyways um i mean the whole blitzkrieg approach required the air you know to soften up defenses with the air raids first and if i mean if the germans can't win the air the air war they're not going to win the naval battle right or the barbarossa should have taken place earlier even though it wasn't really the winter or the rainy season that stopped the germans it was a lack of supplies that needed to be brought up for more info on that check out this lecture by david stahil well what okay barbarossa the invasion of russia should it have been though the i mean okay if they'd done it earlier so they wouldn't get the russian winter i mean the russian winter was hard on them but it may not have mattered anyways right should the question have been what about just not invading russia would that really be a win of the war i mean would you really consider it part of the the war then if they didn't what if they j what if what if hitler just kept the agreement with stone what if he just kept the the non-aggression pact and never had done that um that'd be that should be a question there is would could ger would germany have won that war if they didn't invade russia i think that's a far more sensible question um feel free to talk about that too you'll see people bringing up scenario after scenario that bends reality and character motivations vary widely to craft a scenario that germany could win but here's my point germany would not have won world war ii no matter what way you slice it the fact of the matter is to add to that we have we would have to define what winning is right what is a win what does a win look like a lot of times people don't define what that is in wars what does a win look like because a win can look like a lot of things okay and a lot of it depends on if you're defending or attacking that sort of thing so what does a win look like does germany have to defeat russia for that to be considered a win because they've before then okay taken care of north of them and west of them and italy is an ally down to the south so would that have been a win right there a russia or they don't invade russia maybe they don't even invade britain right or they don't they don't invade uh russia and then go back to britain right could could germany have had success that's another question without the russia could could germany have still taken over the british these are other questions i haven't heard but winning i think winning has to be defined what is a win this is a country that is too small and too short on resources to take on the three largest world powers at once especially given the erroneous actions and motivations they have basically the germans dealt themselves a bad hand and played it poorly and the only way that's going to change is if they spend time and space to their liking with a benefit of 20 they play it poorly though or was the way the game was let out not winnable you know what i mean did they do the best with what they had but was winning never an option man 20 hindsight all things that are not going to happen in reality [Applause] all right um there's a part two germany could not win world war two part two um interesting i have to to to check that out sometime let me know um i can put that in a poll i could put that in the uh in a future um patreon poll if that is something people want to see if it's worth it or should go to to other things okay overall um i hope it's not lame that i'm in agreement with what um they're saying there but yeah there i mean there was a few things maybe i i pers i could perceive differently um like what is a win what should we consider a win right and what is a win for germany does it have to be all of the things that they attempted right what if they had never attempted those things but yeah i think i'm more on the side that germany could not necessarily win that based off of what it seemed their objectives were that they showed what the goals that they showed based on that yeah probably not um i'm gonna i'm gonna accompany this video with a poll um so look out for that um basically could germany win world war ii and i'd like to just get some quick data on what you guys think about that and in the comments there you can definitely um make your case or whatever you could explain if you would like a dialogue then like i said before earlier please join our discord server it's a great way to talk with other history people and just be part of a good community there but that link to that is down below all right but yeah i think i gave my opinions there throughout the video if you like the original video if you have not given them a like and the view make sure you do that if you have not subscribed to the channel their channel make sure you do that description we'll have the original video there like i said before this video was voted on by the patreon pledgers for our channel here if this is something you'd like to get involved in patreon pledges start at a dollar a month and it gives you access to um to those polls um and then also uh gets you can get access increased access or abilities or whatever on discord there's some perks involved in that it's a great way to support the channel but i really do appreciate that if you would like to love to have you as a subscriber to my channel as well and just continue on with me and we learn more about history we can kind of do it together because it is so important and we should definitely be taking it seriously all right with that we'll go ahead and end the video here today i'm sure this is going to strike up a whole bunch of conversations let's keep them respectful let's keep them factually based and not emotionally based and i think we could do some good things with this all right with that we'll see you soon bye

Channel: Mr. Terry History

Views: 725,313

Keywords: react, history, world war 2, germany

Id: Apoh6v9GCvI

Length: 31min 53sec (1913 seconds)

Published: Thu Oct 24 2019