Germany Could Not Win WW2

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there I finished fine-tuning my what-if machine it can answer any what-if question accurate to within 1/10 of a plausibility unit wants the machine to show them an alternate reality if Germany wins if Hitler stops making decisions do they win if they must produce the Maus tank if they took Moscow people of 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 assign to a lot of real-world groups one of these you see talked about a lot is the German army of world war two that if only dumb Hitler hadn't been in charge or if different choices were made that the war would have turned out different in 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 these are my favorite how Germany could have won scenarios and how they're wrong I hear this one all the time that if the Germans had just driven on to Moscow and taken it the Russians would have capitulated it is rarely backed up with evidence as to why even in the memoirs of German generals after the war 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 in the French 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 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 way 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 gonna shrug and say well we tried 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 they not see in this 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 genocide 'el maniac let's not make two ways about it but this isn't always the case for example Hitler in the High Command were all in agreement on invading Russia they all very much wanted to in their eyes destroy communism save Germany's 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 and once the war is over 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 won and one example of this I already hinted at in the former point Hitler's generals were convinced that taking Moscow to 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 and given Germany's oil shortages this is a good example of where Hitler was right in his generals were wrong and actually a lot of Hitler's so-called mistakes start to make a whole lot more sense what 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 in 1943 Hitler's generals convinced him that an attack on the Kursk bulge would cripple the Red Army and renewed Germany's initiative in the war Hitler saw this plan is 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 Germans his premonition was eerily 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 later in the war where Hitler overrules as generals with poor decisions the Battle of the Bulge comes to mind but early in the war when these decisions really count Hitler as many times making the right decisions when overruling his generals or going along with them 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 a doleful around Fiddler's 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 force instead of pouring resources into the tiger or Germany should have built the Luftwaffe back up so they could regain air superiority and I will give you that the German war economy in many places was an absolute nightmare John partial does an excellent lecture on tank production in World War two and really highlights how backwards the German production process was for armored vehicle manufacturing and mentions how that knowledge can be applied to other types of war manufacturing and although once Speer 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 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 in 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 these are just two issues that cannot be remedied by streamlining production at a certain point Germany's 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 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 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 it was probably the only instance in which they would have and even then they did not the reason for Japan not wanting to do this is mostly colored by the Japanese experience against the Soviets at the Battle of Konkan Gaul 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 US 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've screwed me again Japan this is my favorite one if they had just made insert ridiculous design here the war may have gone differently and 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 pics 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 that had run out of fuel and had to be abandoned 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 do the affirmation fuel and personnel problems enlist 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 top scientists were expelled in the 30s for being Jewish automatically limiting 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 to the German atomic program is all but canceled by 1942 as Speer 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 Hitler saw atomic science is 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 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 a stripling super soldier tink [Music] 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 and fibia Sutekh and the much larger Royal Navy would have probably sunk the invading force before it even reached the shores or the Barbarossa should have taken place earlier even though it wasn't really the winter of 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 stay he'll 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 two no matter what way you slice it the fact of the matter is 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 you bend time and space to their liking with the benefit of 20/20 hindsight all things that are not going to happen in reality [Applause]

Info

Channel: Potential History

Views: 3,550,288

Rating: 4.6458507 out of 5

Keywords: Germany, lost cause, ww2, Germany loss, How germany could have won, Eastern front, Oil, Potential History, World War Two, Germany Could Not Win WW2

Id: sbim2kGwhpc

Channel Id: undefined

Length: 12min 6sec (726 seconds)

Published: Mon May 28 2018

Reddit Comments

Inb4 Wehraboos start 'AKSHUALLY'ing.

👍︎︎ 53 👤︎︎ u/Xray330 📅︎︎ Aug 04 2018 🗫︎ replies

Am I the only one who's frustrated he didn't address the scenario where Hitler doesn't invade russia in the first placE?

👍︎︎ 45 👤︎︎ u/dylamug 📅︎︎ Aug 04 2018 🗫︎ replies

Wtf is that clip at 6:44

👍︎︎ 6 👤︎︎ u/ACryingOrphan 📅︎︎ Aug 04 2018 🗫︎ replies

From the interstitial / end song's comments:

How do I search for more music like this without being put onto a list

👍︎︎ 2 👤︎︎ u/mindbleach 📅︎︎ Aug 05 2018 🗫︎ replies

Goddammit this is like the 3rd time today I’ve had someone suggest this fucking video

👍︎︎ 2 👤︎︎ u/wowitskapow 📅︎︎ Aug 05 2018 🗫︎ replies

Why didn't he address Dunkirk in the second part? That was major mistake on Hitler's part and they could've wiped out a significant part of the Allied Forces right there (possibly). This is weirdly just focusing on the Eastern Front.

👍︎︎ 2 👤︎︎ u/sensorih 📅︎︎ Aug 05 2018 🗫︎ replies