The MAIN Reason Why Germany Lost WW2 - OIL

if Hitler had not invaded the Soviet Union in June of 1941 he would likely have never got another chance people keep saying that the Germans should have produced more Panzers they should have produced more planes or produced more submarines people can't understand why Hitler allows the British to withdraw from Dunkirk or why his generals call him mad for ordering his men to stand fast and fight to the death when he has so little manpower even though these are actually strategically sound decisions given the circumstances why did Germany have to invade the Soviet Union in 1941 why was their army marching on thoughts instead of riding in trucks why are they reliance on horses it's all related to the same question why did Germany and the Axis powers lose World War two and it can all be summed up with just one word oil let's find out why few people seem to realize just how severe the oil crisis was for the axis in world war two World War two has been described by one academic historian as the first war for oil when you study world war two you should have the oil crisis in the back of your mind because that is how important it is and we'll find out exactly why in this video oil is not the only factor but oil is the most important one and this what dooms the axis to defeat in World War two that's not to say they didn't have a chance of victory but oil is a massive problem for Germany who's relying on blitzkrieg or the vague ins creek war movement to win its Wars it's also the reason that after the war Britain is no longer a superpower and the Soviet Union and the United States are although that's a topic for another day below you'll find a pinned comment with timestamps of parts of the video so if you want to skip ahead you can do that but I wouldn't months given ahead in this case because you'll miss the context but you'll also find sources the sources that I use down there as well anyway let's just start from the beginning the 19th century was the age of coal Britain was the leading coal producing country in the world thanks to Welsh miners it powered it ships with coal and thus dominated the waves in fact this was the reason that it has such a big merchant fleets it was the only nation really able to power it thanks to coal but in the early 1900's it became obvious that oil was the emergent dominant energy source since oil would power ships more effectively and would be able to power planes cars trucks and eventually tanks as well as industry as a whole coal could not power tanks nor could it compete with oil therefore on a strategic level whoever controlled the oil controlled the world and at this stage the only real oil producer was the United States of America Venezuela and the Soviet Union plus a few other minor countries are producing some oil but the United States was producing nearly 70% of the world's crude oil at this stage Britain Germany France it's lately old European powers do not produce oil they became dependent on the USA and Venezuela plus others for oil meaning that they now have to make sure they're on good terms with them in order to not pay over-the-top prices for oil but also would have to secure access to them in the event of war if they fail to do that they would run out of oil very quickly this is why the vine my republic sets about growing the synthetic oil production since Germany has little to no domestic oil production of its own synthetic oil production is essentially a process whereby coal is converted into oil and that's how desperately were for oil they were willing to use coal itself in great demand and Germany was also sure of that as well the problem was that this was an expensive process very expensive but it was also it's a process however the cost was deemed to be essential on a strategic level in order for Germany to become economically independent from the oil powers for Hitler autarky economic independence and self-sufficiency was the goal if Germany was to wage war and oil was probably the biggest limiting factor that he faced it took time to grow the domestic synthetic oil industry and this was nowhere near prepared to meet the demands of Germany's oil consumption when Hitler's National Socialists took power in 1933 Germany was reliant on imports and the oil producers during the 1930s were essentially the United States Venezuela and the Soviet Union the nations that Hitler would wage war against or would not be able to trade with when war broke out even the Middle East specifically Iran and Iraq we're not producing much oil at this stage and what little they did produce could not be easily moved to Europe as the British were lining out of their cost this meant that both the British and the Germans were reliant on the USA and Venezuela for oil in Europe Romania is the largest exporter of crude oil but even combined with German output as well as the rest of the European output like Hungary this is simply not enough to meet European demand in fact Romanian oil production had songs from 8.7 million tonnes in 1936 to 5.2 million tonnes in 1941 partly due to political reasons so Romania isn't really a reliable source of oil and in 1939 Germany still imported 60% of this petroleum requirements and latts during peacetime so what happens the Germans go to war the quick victories in 1939 and 1940 produce a massive energy crisis in Germany when the French surrender Britain decides to keep fighting this means that imports from outside of Europe cease thanks to the British blockade Germany's domestic oil production synthetic or otherwise nach suddenly has to meet the demands of not only Germany itself but all the countries it's just conquered this was really bad news Germany and a sphere of influence consumed nine million five hundred fifty eight thousand tons more oil than it produced and this was in 1940 Britain we to the last moment had declared war on him placing him in a position of strategic and economic dependence on the state whose annihilation was the central objective the Soviet Union drastic measures were introduced in may of 1941 to curb oil consumption and these were ordered by Hitler himself these were so severe that in 1941 economics Minister Walther funk said that the economy was receiving less than 18% of its peacetime oil quantities but it isn't enough and even more cuts to the civilian economy followed these cuts were so extensive that British Air Ministry observers secretly refer to them in early 1942 as the severus form of rationing but it still isn't enough and the German army is affected in February of 1941 Goering is warned by General de Infantry Georg Thomas head of the war economy and armaments office that fuel reserves would only last about two months during operational consumption ie during an offensive on the 8th of March 1941 kite war was also warm ideal autonomous that existing supplies of petroleum would run out in the middle of August or in the autumn in March of 1941 general edad Vagner the Army Corps Master General gave an equally gloomy prognosis to how the informing him that one's journey lost imports from the soviet union existing stocks were only sufficient for two months of large-scale offensive consumption Raoul has one eye on the petrol gauge at all times because the Italian fleet hasn't got enough oil to ship more oil across to him in fact the Italian fleet is sat in harbors throughout the war through lack of oil in May 1941 Georg Thomas again says Germany will run out of oil in late October in 1941 in late May 1941 general adolf von shell the man responsible for the motor vehicle industry seriously suggested that in light of the chronic shortage of oil it would be advisable to carry out a partial d motorization of their marked at this stage the German army has ten motorized and twenty Panzer divisions at this stage out of 151 divisions aimed at the Soviet Union yeah here was the leading general the motor industry seriously suggesting that they reduced this number even further as a result of the fuel crisis the van Marx was forced to rely extensively on horse-drawn transport which led to further problems the tremendous difficulties in the pace of mass between the motorized and other units raise the issue of when and how to close pockets horse-drawn columns were vulnerable to attacks that aggravated logistic problems and the lack of fodder and replacement animals put a strain on civilian supplies if they do nothing the Germans and the Axis powers in Europe will lose their ability to strike they either have to find peace with Britain or find oil elsewhere there is an attempt to get more oil from Romania in the March of 1941 when Goering meets with Romanian dictator and lets go in Vienna to discuss the raising of oil production in Romania Goering also forms the continental oil AG in 1940 and 41 which it was essentially a Central European fuel company that aims to get as much oil as possible it secured the Romanian oil fields to Germany by buying our Belgian and French owned oil companies in Romania controlling 23% of the oil production in Romania by the spring of 1942 but Romanian oil could only really go so far and peace with Britain now seemed remote what option was left for Germany in late 1914 41 they could take the middle east but again the oil industry there is in its infancy and the British are not extracting much oil from it themselves pause how would the Germans get that oil back to Germany to be refined it's just not practical so unless he wants to watch his war machine and economy collapse there's really only one viable option to mr. Hitler at this stage the occupied territories would drain Germany's meager petroleum reserves within a year unless the Third Reich took immediate action to expand its supplies by invading the Soviet Union on the 31st of July 1940 Hitler decides that the attack on the Soviet Union is going to happen some have said that Germany should have done one of several other options like smashing the British in the Middle East or concentrating on the u-boat war but it's clear at least in Hitler's mind that there's a time limit going on the Berghoff on the 9th of January 1941 Hitler says that smashing the Soviet Union would represent great relief to Germany and to Japan after Russia's destruction Germany would be unassailable Russia's expanses contained immeasurable wealth Germany must dominate them economically and politically but not annex them thus she would have all the potential for waging war even against continents in the future he needs Soviet oil and his eyes on the Caucasus it is crucial to seize quickly and exploit the Caucasus oil fields at least the areas around makeup and Grozny in oil fields that have not yet been completely destroyed it will take about a month to resume production the month for its transport we will have to seize those areas no later than the end of the operations second month if this proved unsuccessful we must expect the most serious repercussions with unpredictable consequences for military operations after the 1st of September 1941 and for the survival of the economy the 1st of September 1941 this is the date that Germany has to win by if it doesn't win by early September the Germans will suffer big time why does Hitler invade the Soviet Union when he does because June 1941 is the latest that Germans can actually invade why not earlier rainy season Balkans Russian winter 1940-41 just name a few issues but there isn't I'm says well he could have invaded a few weeks earlier and that's fine but the point is that the summer of 1941 is the last time Germany has the option to invade because of the oil crisis Britain's decision to keep on fighting in 1940 forces this on Germany the blockade prevents German imports of oil starving the axis of the means to fight this is what triggers Germany to invade the Soviet Union and sets a time limit to that invasion and either way Germany invades the Soviet Union in 1941 with the goal of keeping this to assure war it has to be short because they only have enough oil to fight it for a few months the oil crisis dictates that Germany must win and take the Caucasus in two months otherwise their army will be rendered ineffective they must either knock out the Soviets completely force their collapse or surrender or crush the red army and then take the oil before the Soviets have time to recover this is why going to Moscow in 1941 is wrong this is why taking on Leningrad is kind of irrelevant this is why Guderian is turned south to help Army Group south which does in fact go into the Caucasus briefly in 1941 is force back it's because Germany needs to get to the oil the reason Barbarossa is designed to be a short sharp campaign to wipe the it's out at the border and then ride off into victories because of the oil shortage is not because the limited manpower it's not because they can't replace tanks they actually can replace tank numbers as shown in a previous video the Germans have more tanks in 1942 in 1941 and more times in 1943 then in 1942 the problem is that they can't learn the tanks they already have beyond the autumn of 1941 Barbarossa is designed to cross the Red Army then win and there's no backup plan if this doesn't happen because it's do or die time there's little to no mention about Soviet reserves because the Germans are hoping that they don't have any if they do have reserves are not going to get the resources needed to fight them it's interesting because according to Star Hill the first plans of Operation Barbarossa do not even factor in Soviet reserves that's all powerless is the first to say actually the Soviets will probably have another 100 divisions behind the frontier troops people say palace was a passive commando or bad commander and I'll come back to that at a later date but for Barbarossa he was on the ball unfortunately the Germans and the Paulus it wasn't 100 reserve divisions it was more like 300 although many were not in anyway their full strength bore the Germans don't really have much choice if they don't win in two months their army won't be able to win because their main weapon their Panzers won't have enough fuel to win so it has to be short sharp campaign and it has to be waged in 1941 oh three states that in 1941 Hitler made the mistake invading the Soviet Union in the belief that the tactics of lightning war would bring about victory in four months why four months he started in the 22nd of June so July August September October when they run out of oil it wasn't the invasion of the Soviet Union that was the problem it was the fact that they hoped to win the war in just four months if you read Aryan you will know that Hitler's decision to turn south during Barbarossa cost the Germans the time needed to take Moscow this was often seen as a mistake no no it wasn't if Germany succeeds in taking Moscow thighs obviously a grave disappointment for us but it by no means disrupts our grand strategy Germany would gain accommodation but that alone will not win the war the only thing that matters is oil as we remember Germany kept harping on about her own urging oil problems in her economic bargaining with us from 1939 to 1941 so we have to do all we can to make Germany increase her oil consumption and B to keep the German armies out of the Caucasus that's a speech by Timoshenko in November of 1941 the Soviets will not surrender if Moscow Falls just like Russia did not surrender in 1812 against Napoleon Hitler deemed Moscow to be quote not very important and actually wanted to concentrate forces to the south how they did not want to do that and subsequently the High Command did not do that favoring the Moscow axis striking south makes more sense and not just for the oil since the British blockade precluded the invitation of additional foodstuffs from outside Europe Germany faced a bitter prospect as in 1917 18 of food shortages hunger and political upheaval worryingly Belgium miners had already gone on strike in the winter of 1940 forty ones who protest the meager food supplies while on the 1st of May 1941 German civilians had to face a drastic reduction in their own rations Ukraine was a central target as well as the caucuses which was also a thorough food production area on the strategic level most of the goals were in the south the Ukraine and the Caucasus it makes little sense then that howler and his decided to concentrate in the north and center the German military leadership in fact displayed a willful lack of understanding of economic factors by training and tradition focused almost exclusively on the operational tactical aspects of planning the okh designed a plan based on the lessons of the 1940 French campaign that emphasized a swift decisive concentric thrust towards the enemy capital unconcerned by the fact that the economically vital regions lay in the south it's worth noting that after World War two however is the advisor at the US Army historical division and is the central figure influencing the post-war German narrative of the war he's the guide the other generals are going to and here's the one who is coming up with the narrative that says Hitler was the cause of all of Germany's blames and mistakes during the war howler and his generals are not going to admit their own mistakes and when you read the early World War two histories the ones most people are familiar with because that is the post-war narrative they show that Moscow was the correct route and howled it was right and Hitler was wrong reluctantly Hitler gave in to the urging of brow kitsch Haldor and Bach and consented to the resumption of the drive on Moscow but too late this quote comes after a few pages of constantly going on about how Hitler made the wrong decision to turn south and how how low was so right this is why Guderian is saying how bad the decision to turn from Moscow and help our macGruber South was Hitler said that the law materials and agriculture of the Ukraine was vitally necessary for the future prosecution of the war he spoke once again of the need of neutralizing the Crimea that Soviet aircraft carrier for attacking the Romanian oil fields for the first time I heard him use the phrase my generals know nothing about the economic aspects of war Hitler's words all led up to this he had given strict orders that the attack on Kiev wants to be the immediate strategic objective and all actions were to be carried out with that in mind I here saw for the first time a spectacle with which was late to become very familiar all those present not in agreement with every sentence that Hitler ordered while I was left alone with my points of view Guderian is wrong and is alone in his point of view because as Hitler says he doesn't understand the strategic and economic aspects of the war and the best part is Haldor is actually awarded the meritorious civilian Service Award in 1961 for helping the US military in their historical research so ya howler and his cronies paint a completely biased picture of the war blame Hitler for bad decisions even early words show themselves and ask little light as possible even though they in fact made the bad decisions and then also then gets awarded for doing so and apparently when you try to put this out to people you get branded a revisionist know the German sources are biased just like the Soviet sources and they are twisting the facts to manipulate the way you perceive the war and just to point out there's no such thing as a revisionist historian historian by definition looks at the sources and questions them if they don't do that you're not a historian anyway so how older and the German generals narrative of the war is biased towards the Moscow axis and is painting Hitler as a madman no going towards Moscow is a terrible decision so tight with fuel Russians that in November 1941 Opel was forced to shut down production at his Brandenburg plant Germany's largest truck factory because it lacked the petrol necessary to check the fuel pumps and all vehicles coming off the assembly line a special allocation of 104 cubic meters of fuel has to be arranged by the Vermont's economic office so as to ensure that there was no further interruptions the German economy is on its last legs the German van market is critically short of fuel despite having absolute priority it runs out of fuel in October and November 1941 the Germans in fact reach the Caucasus and take Rostov in 1941 but I've thrown back during the Soviet went a counter-offensive interestingly terrible German logistics actually plays into their favor as Haywood points out because the backlog of fuel trains ends up clearing in December and fuel their folders get to the front which allows the German army to fight on through the winter months but essentially from this point on the Germans are now not able to wage the war that they had before they can no longer advance on a broad front line he did during 1941 they would only have enough fuel to supply one German army group this is why Moscow isn't taken in 1942 instead Hitler sends his Panzer south this is his last chance to find oil case plow and Stalingrad is Hitler's absolute last chance of winning the war he even says if I do not get the oil of makeup and Grozny and I must end the war and he was right fuel too was in such short supply at the VAM Arts High Command in 1942 cut the fuel ration to the oust hair considerably a blow to his mobility accentuated by the serious loss of horses the okay it'll be warns in June and banging fight suta the army will have no choice but to partially de motorized yes debugs our eyes those of you who say that the Germans didn't have enough tanks or trucks or equipment you're half right they actually did have enough tanks tank numbers were greater in 1942 99.1 and again in 1943 compared to 1942 the problem is that they don't have enough petrol to run the ones that we've got already tellingly at a time when the Soviets were rapidly rebuilding and mechanizing their forces the Vermont was in the process of Requip in its reconnaissance units with bicycles this the modernization of the oust hair did not bode well given that the success of the campaign depending on seizing objectives more than 800 miles from the German start line and off regional and logistic challenges greater than that of the previous summer lots of people including historians say that the Germans were aiming for Baku the Germans don't actually need to take Baku they just need to take makeup and Grozny technically they do get to them but they only managed to extract some hundred fifty tonnes of crude oil from the month before they're forced back but this is Hitler's last chance he's now at war with Britain and the Soviet Union which is bad enough as it is but he's also now at war with the United States the leading oil power of the world America's trucks tanks planes trains they sent a lot of training to the Soviet Union which may have been more important than the trucks they send and vast quantities of other equipment they're on the way and unlike the Germans the Allies have the fuel to rule them it's just a matter of time Hitler knows this and knows his only chance to fight against the material superiority that's heading his way is to capture the oil in the Caucasus if he gets the oil his economy will be saved and he would have the resources of continental Europe at his disposal he would have the fuel to motorize and mechanize his army and the Panzers would have the fuel they need to actually fight the blitzkrieg would be back on but he only has a narrow window of opportunity to take the oil this is why it was vitally important that the Caucasus be taken in 1942 and why the styling drug campaign is important - there's two aspects to this plan of Hitler's as well the first is to get the oil and makeup and Grozny the second is to cut the Soviets off from Baku and now we can't get to Baku but what he can do is block the Volga perhaps they shouldn't have gone into the city of Stalingrad what's that south of it on the Volga just prevented the oil tankers from heading north and we'll leave the tactical decisions behind this debate for another day but if the German has caught the Volga the Soviet Union would be crippled the loss of would deprive the Soviet Union of half of its oil reserves and eighty to ninety percent of its crude oil production refinery out port and pipeline capacity meanwhile severing the transit lines along the Volga would eliminate the most effective means of moving oil to central Russia from either the Caucasus covering the distance of 1,200 kilometers on average to reach its domestic consumers or the Volga Urals second Baku without oil and without food and by the way the service were getting hungry already thanks to the loss of the crane the Soviet war effort would be in a dire situation this would have given Hitler the oil he needed to keep fighting and apply the service of the oil and food they needed to fight effectively Germany would have been placed in the best position the best chance of winning if they'd taken the Caucasus and cut the Volga this was Hitler's last real gamble this is why the styling rec campaign is a turning points they may not be the big turning point of the war arguably may have already happened and we'll ask that question you know what was the big turning point the war in another video but if Hitler had won this fight in 1942 is slightly about the Soviets would have collapsed in 1943 1944 German economic assessments of the Soviet Union's precarious economic situation in early 1942 also had some merits the Soviet economy was in fact on the verge of collapsed due to the loss of numerous economic and raw materials assets during Operation Barbarossa moreover the Soviet Union was already dependent by 1942 on lend-lease assistance especially food and speciality petroleum products such as high-octane gasoline consequently there is every reason to think that the loss of the Caucasus would have rendered the Red Army combat ineffective within a year causing the oil routes north would mean that the Red Army would barely have enough reserves of oil to wage war in 1943 and probably would have paralyzed what remained of Soviet culture production and Stalin knows this as well he tells deputy oil commissar nikolai bayer bokov but if he doesn't destroy the oil fields before the germans capture them he would be shot the Soviets therefore ensure that the oil fields are destroyed so thoroughly in fact that even the Germans were impressed by the effort they went to do it the issue with the 1942 campaign was that while it's a lot of distance the Germans simply don't have enough men and equipment to do the task I'll be covering this in great detail in my upcoming documentary but effectively the Germans and axis Allied forces are not capable of what was needed and they are defeated when you read the counts of German Panzer formations advancing in this campaign you hear how they keep running out of fuel this means their attack on Stalingrad for example it's often a stop-start affair as they're waiting for more fuel to catch up to them yes Logistics does play its part but actually a lot of it is simply the fact that the Germans have run out of fuel now some of you will be thinking that Germany carried on the war until 1945 and that its economy didn't collapse because of a lack of oil resulting from not capturing the Caucasus this is true but that doesn't mean they weren't chronically short of oil synthetic fuel around Germany to wage war but not to win it Jaimie's economically illiterate generals scoff the economic advisors who urge the conquest of the Caucasus by pointing out that Jony managed to carry on the wards all 95/5 ever securing the Caucasus oil but at no point after the failures 9.1 v2 to Germany ever possess the opportunity to end the war on favourable terms rather axis Europe had to spend the rest of the conflict laboring on the constant shortage of energy which constrained economic productivity and reduced military effectiveness he would also points out that the German economy didn't collapse and that even some of the economic reports about the lack of oil were little bit exaggerated however there are reasons the Germans continued to find Italy defected to the ally so the Germans captured Italian oil reserves they also Roundtop synthetic oil production which helped massively although was never going to be ignore they're also fighting a mostly defensive war at this point so fuel isn't getting used as much there's also a reduction in the number of fighting vehicles some Luftwaffe training regimes were closed because of a lack of fuel and the wolf life as a whole was suffering from a chronic lack of fuel during the Battle of the Bulge the Germans were relying on capturing Allied fuel stocks and paper even drove half tracks to minefields to clear them because well they run out of fuel the weapons of war are useless when you don't have the fuel to run them which is why it was sound strategy to drive after Ike silver mines and there's other examples what essentially the economy didn't collapse until the US Air Force hammered the synthetic oil plants in late 1944 and 95 and this whole oil crisis explains some of the other aspects of the war including Hitler's standfast orders people don't seem to understand Hitler's standfast orders his generals were the most vocal in this subject - even going so far as to call him mad that argument is convincing from a tactical point of view but not from a strategic point of view Hitler says he either takes me a cop and Grozny or must end the war and so he takes them and then holds on to them for dear life hoping to simultaneously extract oil and starve the Soviets of oil where does he start the memorial the Volga of Stalingrad now it can be argued that Stalingrad wasn't necessary for this they could have gone south the city and block of olive alone I agree however once committed at Stalingrad Hitler's reasoning for standing fast on the Volga is kind of understandable not just from a tactical point of view but from a strategic point of view he's trying to block the oil shipments up the Volga and not withdrawing from the Caucasus makes sense because he's trying to extract the oil there's also the promise from sign-u says he will Winkle with the 6th army and then there's also jazz annex indication that the law fiber could supply the six army but yeah anyway it turns out to be a complete disaster as we know after this though why stand fast well let's not forget who Hitler was he had fought in the First World War and so he does not want to repeat the stab-in-the-back surrender that caused the Germans to lose World War one after World War one the German opinion was that the German army had not been defeated in the field and had in fact been stabbed in the back by the government Hitler having lived through that war and having shared this opinion most vocally is not willing to surrender in the second war for this reason and in 1943 1944 the Germans are still fighting deep in Soviet territory they are weak but far from defeated but now they have this critical oil crisis that prevents the movement of their motorized units the German generals are suggesting that they should just move back in order to consolidate and then buy time for another counter-attack there's the saying that they want to fight a maneuver war and that's perfectly understandable however they are thinking from a tactical and operational point of view not a strategic point of view their fuel supplies are inadequate they can't find the maneuver war that they want - when you look at what Hitler's saying I shouldn't have listened to my generals he's right they wanted to go to Moscow they wanted Leningrad they wanted to retreat they were wrong generals like man Stein are relieved of command and replaced by generals who will stand and fight about his dismissal - Stein says that Hitler still had faith in Him but at the moment however there was no further scope for me in the east the task now pending he considered modle who had stopped a difficult retreat in northern army group to be especially suitable he goes on to say about the army group command he was mudal it's only remaining commitment was to assess the fighting troops and give them moral support that modal would certainly be able to do the Fuhrer empathically agreed that modal was a particularly suitable choice in this respect as he would dash around the divisions and get the very most out the troops Manstein was the old maneuver warfare general whereas modal was the type of defensive general who would stand and fight to the last this is why modal was known as the forest fireman because he was constantly pointing out fires throughout the Eastern Front the point being that there was no fuel left to wage the maneuver war that man's time was good at that the war had moved to an additional defensive battle stage Hitler recognized that and he also couldn't surrender as stated so really what choice does he have all of them to stand and fight he's playing for time because that's always got left and he's hoping for miracles that's not the force of a madman this is his only option if he surrenders he's dead so he has to keep fighting given the situation strategically this is his only option and he's he's not mad for taking it he's desperate and he's clutching the straws but he's not mad the oil crisis dictates that this has to happen I also think it's interesting that up until late 1942 Hitler is mostly willing to listen to his generals and mostly were willing to allow them to do what they think is best Stalin is the opposite of this and yet during the Battle of Stalingrad Stalin and Hitler seem to swap personalities Hitler becomes less willing to listen to his generals and less willing to allow them the freedom of action they want styling does start listening to his generals and does start allowing them to make their own decisions it's as though both dictators realized at the same time neither tide had changed that Hitler had lost the war and Stalin had won it and it isn't just because of the fall of the Ukraine and food or the coal or the other aspects and it's not because of the van Marx was defeated it was because Hitler had not taken the oil and not when the oil rush and he spent his last energies trying to get the once this is realized both seem to swap roles and that's me is very interesting there's obviously a lot of factors going on here but that change of personality indicates that the tide of war had changed now of course Hitler had been stood before this and sometimes his decisions don't seem to make much sense of the surface such as Dunkirk why allow the British to withdraw from Dunkirk now I'm gonna hold my hand up in here and then just say that I'm only suggesting that this is a factor I'm not saying this is the absolute 100 percent the only reason for this only suggesting that this should be factored in to the debate about Dunkirk okay I'm going to suggest that some of the historians who say that Hitler did it for political reasons because he is trying to appease Britain may have been right why would he try and appease Britain Britain by fighting on is no real threat to Germany at least not by itself it's army it's small they're struggling in North Africa against the Italians are then later that Rommel and his three divisions and it's air force is good we're not able to seriously hurt Germany at this time what the British have is the Royal Navy and Hitler knows what they'll do with it blockade just like they do with the First World War Germany is blockaded shipments of oil from the United States of Venezuela cease and this is the ticking time bomb for Germany this limits Germany's potential to win the war resulting in the invasion of the Soviet Union but if Hitler can appease the British or persuade them to come to peace it would allow shipments of oil to keep coming into Germany and maybe buy him time to turn his army into the a fully motorized and mechanized force in this context Dunkirk makes sense let's allow the British to withdraw or showing Britain that hey we don't want to fight you let's let's go for peace eh this is Hitler trying to win the British over but of course Churchill has none of it okay fine so let's threatened to invade and then put political and economic pressure on Westminster to piece out by bombing them and then sink their ships it doesn't need a victory he just needs peace gurbles says he doesn't want that's all - an ally England nor destroy its empire but we must have calm Kershaw says while he was at the Berghof Hitler had talks with his military leaders about a possible invasion of Britain should his peace offer be rejected these discussions and invasion was still seen as a last choice rather than a first option as Richard overi States he was forced to attack the Soviet Union because Britain's stupid Chiefs refused to make a sensible peace perhaps he reflected he should have struck South Seas Gibraltar and swept into the Near East to smash British resistance Dunkirk in this context makes sense allow the British Army to withdraw it's not really a threat anyway and we don't really want to invade England and then try and get the British to accept peace perhaps this is why Hitler stopped the Panzers if the British can be persuaded to come to terms on the peace table the blockade will be lifted and Germany will have access to more oil maybe this was for economic reasons in his biography of Hitler Kershaw suggests that this wasn't the case and that Dunkirk was in fact a purely military decision in Sharra's rise and fall of the Third Reich he has a debate about it citing a little bit Haldor over and over again and seems to puzzled when some general suggests that Hitler was happy to let the British Empire live on hauser of course says Hitler was at fault and that's it was his military decision although admits that there were second political decisions and reasons as well how the blames Goering and signs was instead who says he wasn't the one who sided with Hitler even though he did and there's other generals as well that seems to be on the other side on in one account and they're nine as a whole the debate goes on as a massive mass and really it does deserve it a video on its own bore I'm going to suggest that Hitler had the oil situation the back of his mind as well and in that context it adds weight to the idea that Hitler was trying to appease the British in that sense he does not need victory he just needs peace again I'm just suggesting that this was a factor not necessarily the only factor right or wrong though I would love to hear your thoughts on this point so let me know 90% the world oil supplies were controlled by the Allies so deficient were the Axis powers of oil they were willing to wait war to obtain it this was the axis Achilles heel the British decision to keep fighting in 1940 results in the blockade of Europe that prevents oil from getting to Germany Hitler is therefore forced to fight a war with the Soviet Union which doesn't collapse in 1941 as expected but keeps fighting this forces Hitler to gamble in striking towards the Caucasus in 1942 in one last attempt to get to the oil that he needs to wage the war and is prevented from doing so by what happens to Stalingrad after this point Hitler's only real choice is to fight and buy him as much time as possible leading to an increasing use of Spain faster orders ultimately Jeremy didn't need more prancer's or trucks or submarines or planes because it couldn't run the ones it had oil is probably not the only factor but it is a big one when you think of world war two you should think of oil it explains the war it explains why one side one on one side last explains the post-war world why Britain is no longer a superpower but the Soviets and the USA are and explains many of the decisions made at a time and even since do you agree do you disagree let me know below and if this makes sense to you share this video tell people hey this is where Germany lost the war thank you to my patrons for making this video possible your support allow the purchase of the books I use in this video you effectively made this video happen so thank you for being awesome big shout out and a big thank you goes to Richard Stokes who provided me with several articles from authors like top Rami the guy do the substantial amount of research on the oil situation in world war two as a follow-up video to this video I highly recommend the lecture video by top Ronnie who goes into more detail about how oil shake World War two which you can find here and also in the pin comment in the comment section below so go and check it out thank you all for watching bye for now

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Keywords: The Reason Germany Lost WW2, why Germany lost WW2, german oil ww2, biggest reason germany lost, reasons why germany lost ww2, oil crisis ww2, axis oil, why did germany lose ww2, the main reason germany lost ww2, world war 2, ww2, history, TIKhistory, germany ww2, turning point ww2, turning point

Id: kVo5I0xNRhg

Length: 46min 36sec (2796 seconds)

Published: Mon Feb 19 2018

Reddit Comments

[u/dreukrag]

German industrial capacity never matched its oponents, neither did their engineering.

Would better access to oil make their industries produce better quality gear? Would they have produced more trucks that they desperatly needed to improve their logistics? Would they produce a real tank instead of panthers and tigers?

I dont think merely having better access to resources would've somehow made them perform better.

[u/BobT21]

Long ago I met an old man who had been in the German army in North Africa in WW II. He said "Yes we lost. Do you know about those silly electrical fuses in Volkswagens, the fuses with the pointed ends?"

[u/Bernard_Woolley]

My understanding is that the main reason Germany lost WW-II is that it started it. The country had neither the industrial capacity not the manpower to win a multi-front war.

[u/toryhistory]

The huge allied advanted in oil production is a substantial and generally underrated limitation on axis industrial and military potential, but this video goes way too far in the other direction. geo-political power was not parcelled out according to who could produce oil. The oil deficiency was probably larger (the exact amount is hard to quantify, I've never seen a good apples to apples comparison of oil usage in the war) than the other axis industrial deficiencies, but was not categorically different. The axis powers were behind, and they knew they were behind, and saw the war as a desperate way to catch up. The didn't realize how far behind they were.

[u/[deleted]]

Yeah military resources was a big factor in Germanies defeat in World War 2. But The blitzkrieg, the tactic that had put Europe under Germanies control was amazing in the smaller countries of Europe where one or two pitched battles would end in descisive victory for Germany. It really was poorly suited in Russia however. It's hard to descisively defeat a mobile army that has nearly endless space to keep moving around. You can't box them in and destroy their amy like in France, Poland, Greece etc. Russia had a modern massive rail system that stretched all over the interior of the country outside of Germanies reach to destroy. Russia could essentially move massive ammounts a men and material nearly anywhere it was needed quickly. As modern as Germanies weopons were it's transportation system and logistics system was not very good. Germany still relied mainly on horses and cargo tracks to move men and material. Once Russia started gaining momentum late in the war and started counter attacking across the whole front Germany could not supply it's army fast enough to halt the Russians or get back on the offensive.

[u/Jurryaany]

I, too, was recommended this video recently.

I thought it offered an interesting perspective but I'm no expert on this time period, so I'll keep an eye on this comment thread.