What did Germany need to win the war?

You're obiviously a person who does not understand the nature of war, not a litle bit. There is no a pretty war or a just war in history, never will be. The only reason why Americans and Brits are not accounted for the same "unhuman/criminal" treatment of Germans as Russian only coz they never had Germans on their homeland. They never had to find out that their relatives maybe parents was burn alive or that Gestapo hanged their lil sister on town squar infront of the crouwd coz, she was untifasict. When enemy occupying your home it is always becoming more personal. And it goes for every war. I'm not saying that soviets were innocent, white and fluffy. But not any other country during WW2 had to expirience same cruelty during occupation as they did. THOSE THINGS CHANGE YOU! Well maybe Polish people did. Still in another way tho. They did sustained the highest lost in percentage towards their population, still Germans went mostly after the Jews. As in ex Soviet Union Germans were generally cleaning up the territory fo the arian race ...

No, ofcouse not, Germans were much more organised then that. What they did was - collected female population of the certan age and then sorted them through medical comissions. Those who fit were send into whore houses for German soldiers and officers.
Since we started comparing... Do you ever happend to hear of Gemans in West Europe burning whole wilages with all inhabitants. Guess not. Happend quite a few times on the East tho. Just an advice - should't ever comparing West and East Fronts and occupyed territories. Unless you want to highlight some differences cuz ther was nothing in common.

EDIT
ooops, fogot on topic...
I think Germans should've just stopped in 1941, when they were on their highest. Not invading USSR. Just keep control of th Europe growing stronger. Soviet was not ready for attacking anyone. Finnish winter war of 1939 showed all how weak Soviets were ( Probaly one of the reasons Hitler could not resist attacking USSR ). Germans should of been even more sneeky if they pushed Japan in war with USA. While Britans main allie were busy Germans could try making a peace with UK. Growing stronger in Europe, reforming military. Prepairing secretly main amphibios assualt on UK.

 

Hitler always planned to invade Russia, even going back to his book Mein Kamph in which he said Lebanstrom would be found in the East. He never wanted a War with Britain, he said this time and time again. Even in October 7th 1939 he said to Keitel about the Polish Territories, "It is important to us from a military point of view as an advanced jumping-off point and for strategic concentration of troops. To that end the railroads, roads and communication channels are to be kept in order." (Shirer, Rise and Fall of the Third Reich, 669) The reason why he made a Non-Aggression Pact with Stalin was to not repeat the mistakes of Wilhelm and fight a two front war. This made the German people and Italy very uneasy especially when they invaded Finland and part of Poland was parititioned to them.
Think about it, by 1941 Hitler had lost the Battle of Britain, was having minor success in Africa, and it was just a matter of time before America entered the War with the Allies (this of course is debatable, since it was Germany that declared war on the US). If Russia attacked he would be in srious trouble. Anyways, all that doesn't matter, to Hitler there was no question Russia must be defeated and White Russia used for Lebanstrom, controling the Center of Europe, therefore controlling the world or at least that is what Hitler believed.

 

Bravo!

And welcome to the forum!

 

Exactly! In fact Stalin has read Mein Kampf and was aware of Hitler's intensions. Upon signing the Malotov-Ribbentropp pact, Stalin told Malotov " Im signing a treaty with a nation who's ultimate goal is to destroy us."

But Stalin needed time to build up his military as well..... He just would never belive that Hitler would attack so soon. The Russian people would pay dearly for this catostrophic blunder.

 

Perhaps Germany also needed a change in ideology? Afterall "Racial Supremacy" can not be overlooked.

 

Hitler never wanted to contol the World. He was going for the Europe. Wich he basicly had under control in 1941. Thue, the conflict with Soviets was inevitable. But both counties was't ready. Guess Hitler thought Germany being in a better shape had a chanse finishing USSR in a fast Blitzkrieg.
Hitlers "minor success in Africa" could've turned into complet Victory if he instead of invading russkies gave some aid to those couple divisions in Africa. Stalin was far from making a move on Germany. Being so paranoid as he is, he purged army so well, stripping it of off expirienced commanders and generals leaving it not capable for any seriouse military actions ( Finish winter war is a best prove ). In fact when Germany invaded USSR in 1941 soviets could not fight for sh!t!!! Germans who tought them everything and Soviets had to learn hard way.

EDIT
typos...

 

But to go back to the central issue, I think Germany should have never signed an alliance with Japan, this gave the US the excuse it needed to enter World War II, Hitler's thinking that Japan would help against Russia on a second front was not well thought out, I could be wrong on this, but I think more pressure should have been put on Nationalist Spain for an Alliance, as well as Portugal, this could have been used for Naval Bases as well as made it easier to supply Rommel and perhaps another place to use Naval Bombers and Submarines against Allied Shipping. I also believe that an invasion of Turkey would have benefited Hitler, in allowing another front to attack Russia and to get to Iraq which would later rebel against Britain, an alliance probably could be made with Iraq gaining much needed oil and possible access to British India. I think also Hitler should have put more focus on Nuclear capabilities, which he generally ignored as "Jewish", I really don't know why. Another thing would be a better engine bomber and work on a strategic bomber. I think Hitler blundered on his invasion of Norway, even though Britain was planning on assisting Finland, I don't think they would have been able to stop Sweden from sending supplies to Germany, and they also would have been fighting the Soviets, another plus for Hitler. And lastly I think the focus on a German surface Navy was wrong, they should have built Much More Submarines than Hitler did, this would have terrorized Britain and maybe accomplished some of what Hitler wanted to do and that was to starve them out.

 

Spain actually did help Germany but only on the easter front. This allowed Spain to remain Neutral. Around 45,000 spaniards fought under Leningrad.

I cant imagine that attacking Turkey would benefit Hitler as that would be just another country going to war with. Supply lines would not have been that much shorter at all.

Oil in the Mid East at this time was almost none existent. Getting the oil back to Germany would prove to be almost an impossibility as well.

Finland fought with Germany she supplied about 250k troops (?) and attacked the Russians north of Leningrad only to regain the territory lost in the "Winter War."

 

My point with Spain was that it would have acted as a good place to get reinforcements and supplies to Africa, and had many Naval Ports the Germans could have used, but now that I think about it that would have been just one more front for the Allies to invade and the Germans would have to defend, as for Turkey I don't think that they would have put up much of a fight and a fight against the Russians from this front could have allowed the Germans to more rapidly reach their goals with a pincer movement rather than a blunt frontal assault. I would like to know your source on the oil in the middle east not being viable source for Germany, I read in a book called What If a collection of articles about Alternative History that this was possible according to historian John Keegan. There were oil fields around Mosul in Iraq and Kuwait and Abadan in Persia, these were accessable to Britain, so even if Hitler couldn't have accessed them it would have been a blow to the Allies. As for Finland, I was not talking about Hitler Allying with them, I know he does this, but I was talking about him not invading Norway, the Allies were planning on sending a expeditionary force to assist Finland against Russia, which would have seen Russians fighting British, which would only be good for Hitler, the problem would be if the Allies intefered in shipping from Sweden to Germany which according to the Altmark incident they probably would have, so I don't know on that one, Admiral Raeder lost most of the surface Navy in Operation North, so I guess in the end I don't believe it was worth it, if Britain had violated Norway and Sweden Neutrality it would have made them look bad, and let us not forget that due to this incident Chamberlain was forced to resign and the hard headed bulldog Churchhill took his place further dooming Germany.

 

Good points here JohnnyReb. Spain's contribution was ambiguous. It would for example supply the U-Boots for money. There is a nice example of this business in the film Das Boot. At the same time it would intern allied airmen but be lenient when it came to diplomacy or when they escaped to Gibraltar. Spain adopted a neutrality which had to be admitted by all. This is what allowed Franco to stay in power so long. Had he offically sided with Hitler, his career would certainly have been much shorter.

 

dear JohnnyReb1983, i like the oilfields subject!!!
i just want to remind u the following:

- maikop oilfield in caucusus was occupied by nazi but in 5 months they didn't get any single drop despite goring himself was appointed as commander for the recovery of wells and plants, which of course had been destroyed by the retreating soviets.

- ironically this (useless) effort to get so far in the caucusus hunting for oil cost the nazi a devastating shortage of fuel

- i'm curious: can u tell us how was the middle east oil been supposed to go back to germany? pipeline??? boats??? trucks??? germany had none of them.

- nazi could have used the oil drilled directly on location, but it would have taken months, if not years, to get the wells full operative again.

- the allied were not so depending on middle east oil, the loss of iraq would not have been so bad.

- in the meantime: how the nazi would get to iraq??? by riding camels or by motor vehicles? and in case, using which oil?

- the military occupation of an industrial area does NOT mean that the invaders will be able to exploit the plants (probably dismantelled). The military are good at blowing up and destroying things, they can do it in a few hours. But "build up" something is completly different; you need knowledge, skills, qualified human resources, manpower and, above everything, TIME.

 

And one of the most valuable thing in oil production to refine it to gasoline and other fuels is chemicals, apparently Germany was very low on those chemicals. Also another point is that you can bet your house that the Soviets would have destroyed the Baku oilfields if it came to it.

 

Which puts us back to the very beginning. If Hitler had kept his pact with Stalin, he would have received all the oil he needed from Russia.

 

Seems like we made a big circle Slon. Not to mention that I remember some of us participated to a similar "what if" thread about the Caucasus oil, but couldn't find the link.

 

I think that Hitler should have destroyed the oil refineries in the caucus instead of trying to capture them.The loss would have hurt the Soviet war effort and would not have exposed the southern flank to a counter attack ( Uranus) . The British planned this to cut off Soviet oil to the Reich prior the attack on France. Destroying the oil would have saved the Reich uncounted losses and produced the same results as occupying them. Since the oil fields could not be brought back on line in time to affect the war.

 

He was damn stupid to break the pact. He indeed needed all the oil Russia had, if he did something for Russia (like give a part of Poland) Russia hapily gives a little share.

 

Wrong. No German had any reason to believe that Germany could possiblely be defeated by a nation that couldn't even subdue Finland.

 

Wrong. Many German Officers knew Russia was impossible to take. They weren't that stupid.

All the civilians in Germany were brainwashed by his might ofcourse they never thought that the Reich could be defeated.

 

As I said I could be wrong on the oil fields, as for Russia the best thing to have done would have been not to attack them, but as I said before Hitler was determined to do so, just as he did to Austria, the Czechs, and Poland, this was always the plan he had in his mind, working his way east. I think Hitler's best quality and his downfall was his determination and strength of will, once he made up his mind he rarely changed it. I think the best thing would have been Hitler getting assasinated and someone else taking charge, and yes even though Goering was a overweight cocaine addicted meglomanias, he still didn't like this war and would have done anything to get out of it.

 

Not that many. They were also the ones who had been skeptical when the German troops marched into Rhineland, Czechoslovakia, Poland, and France. Their opinions did not represent the majority.