No Pearl Harbor: When does USA get involved in WW2?

But why even want a victory over the United States? Hitler was concerned primarily with lebensraum in the east, and the USA was only a nuisance keeping a power alive that didnt offer any seriouis threat.

 

True, but what was the option, ignore Britain. Germany still needed imports.

 

But how does going to war with the usa help Germanys import problems?

 

Well, it doesn't. But by then, Germany was already commited to a naval war with Britain, which in he latter part of 41 was not going Germanys way, thanks in part to American intervention. By declaring war on the US, he at least freed the hands of the U-Boats, as Dornitz and Raeder had been asking.

Maybe he also thought that Japan would return the favour and attack Russia. You'd have thought Hitler would have learnt his lesson concerning his Allies by then.

 

haha youd think. Oh well, better for us in the long run he did.

 

Before Pearl Harbor, Hitler was cautious about provoking the US, despite the Tripatiate Pact with Japan.

Then the U-turn after Pearl Harbor.

Add to this, the fact that Hitler never, ever, attempted to make a compromise peace with either the Soviets or the Americans, despite the fact that a German victory was clearly impossible after Stalingrad, and total defeat was CERTAIN by October 1944, V-weapons and Me262s notwithstanding. (Even a German victory at Kursk would only have delayed the Soviet offensive by about six months.)

If Hitler was a true stateman that cared about Germany, he would have tried to make peace while he could. But he didn't.

He wanted to continue the war as long as possible, regardless of whether he won or not, and regardless of the suffering of the German people. And every day the war dragged on, more Jews were being shoved into the gas chambers.

This shows that Hitler didn't even make a genuine mistake in declaring war on America - he simply wasn't interested in the military and economic consequences of the war anymore after December 7 1941. He must have said to himself something like this:

"To hell with it, I'm not going to pander to that Jew-lover Roosevelt anymore - I'm going to declare war on him and have done with it. The Japanese will probably beat the Americans anyway, and if they don't, who cares? At least I'll have exterminated all those filthy Jews before they can stop me."

Hitler GAVE UP his plans for Germany in December 1941. In his view, his generals had betrayed him by failing to win, and most of his soldiers were miserable cowards. After that he simply didn't care what happened to Germany or the Germans anymore.

In December 1941 Hitler the politician abdicated in favour of Hitler the mass murderer.

 

War was inevitable between those two. It was just who would have made the first move... In reality, Japan did. Both nations wanted the Pacific Ocean as their personal lake. Maybe Japan wanted that more than the USA, but USA was not going to let the Japanesse to have all the Pacific for themselves. None of the two nations could expand territorialy or economically in the Pacific with another powerful nation in it...