What if germany won the battle of the bulge?

I am currently watching a program on history channel talking about the battle. What if Germany completed its objective and halted the Allies. Would affect would this bring throughout the war?

post anything related.

 

Maybe delay the inevitable conquest of Germany (from the Allied side at least) for a few months. If that, even. If the Germans had taken Antwerp their few troops would have been stretched to the limit and Allied air superiority would have allowed them to pick these guys off one by one. Yes, the loss of Antwerp would have delayed the Allies getting supplies up to the front but not by much. The Battle of the Bulge was too little too late.

 

The end result would have been the same if the German troops had reached their destination. There was no troops following and the tanks etc other invaluable machinery would have been lost like what happened in real life. So any real success could not have been exploited anyway.

 

This is a really impossible 'what if?' as the Germans were too weak, the Allies too strong ( particularly in air power ) for the Germans ever to have 'won' the battle.

But if the Germans had won - by deploying even more of their depleted strength to the Ardennes - then post-war European history would have been different because the Soviets would have snatched even more of Europe before the wars' end.....

 

Not even that, because on the aftermath of the BoB what could be salvaged of the 5th Pz Army was sent East but to Hungary to Guderian's despair, just as the Soviets were launching their Vistula to the Oder offensive.

 

Yes, that was Hitler´s idea. First strike in the West, and the then in the East, and the next operation would not be directed towards Germany until summer 1945. The funny thing for the operation in the east is that it would be directed to Budapest/Ploesti, and even with Ploesti back in their hands they could not get any oil for ages there. And the main Red Army thrust would go to Berlin and Hitler´s tanks were in Hungary...

 

Okay, then. What if the BoB was sent to the east? x) To fight the Russians.

 

At this point in the war, there was not much Germany could do to change the final outcome. The resources used in the Battle of the Bulge, in my opinion, should have been used in the East to fend of the Russians. The bombing campaign virtually destroyed the rail network hampering transport of any munitions. The Russians were about to take the oil fields in Rumania so there was not much more to do.

 

I think the reason the Battle of the Bulge seems like such a hopeless cause to us is that we're looking at it from a tactical or strategic position. It was hopeless and rather counterproductive if you look at it this way. However, I think a big reason Hitler pushed for it was political. Even if he wouldn't admit defeat he surely recognized it staring him in the face and there was no way he was going to survive that. So to hell with keeping any semblance of Germany alive. He wanted to drag things out as long as possible and hope for a miracle. And he had to keep all the other Germans from admitting that all was lost so he had to give them hope. He couldn't simply put all his forces into defense mode; that would be a blatant admission at this point that he himself recognized that his was a hopeless cause. He had to go on the offensive, no matter how bleak his prospects were. A victory, no matter how small or temporary, could go a long way in Nazi Germany and further strengthen his hold on the German people, to the bitter end.

Hitler had precious few resources by this time and it was clear he could launch only one major final counter-offensive even though he had two fronts to fight, fronts that were coming closer and closer. The decision to choose the Western Front is also a no-brainer. The front was much shorter on the western side so the few divisions Hitler could commit to his gamble would pack a bigger punch. In addition, the transportation issues (better roads, for example) would allow him more maneuverability. In addition, he had a strategic objective, Antwerp on the coast. On the Eastern Front what is going to signal a victory? Even Hitler could see that at best he couldn't hope to advance more than a hundred or so kilometers and there were no strategic natural objectives that he could stop at that would in any way be defensible.

And then there's the issue of how the German populace would respond to the invading forces. Hitler knew that the Germans would fight to the death before surrendering to the Russians (the Russians by this point were clearly going to rape and murder their way across Germany). However, by this point he already knew how Germans in the western Rhineland were hanging out the white flags when the Allies advanced. So it didn't make sense to put all his eggs into the Eastern Front basket while the Allies sweep in all but unopposed on the west. To Hitler it didn't matter who ultimately conquered Germany; he was still a dead man. But to the German populace who didn't plan on dying it was quite obvious who they would prefer to be their conqueror.

Anyway, just my two cents on the issue.

 

And two cents very well spent.

 

Got my vote.

Just another reason why Hitler should had never ever took charge in running the war.

 

Allied air domination means such thing was impossible. If it happened, there would be no significant gain as long as the air belongs to the Allies. If Germany emphasized on air weapon, the war might last a bit longer than it did.

 

Germany could not "win" the Ardennes offensive. They could have possibly done better in terms of driving a deeper wedge in the Allied lines. But, they were not going to terminate the US - Commonwealth alliance nor could they hope to get a peace settlement from their offensive; thus, they could not win.
On the other hand, it is likely that Hawker meant the question more along the lines of had they met some or all of their objectives such as crossing the Meuse and threatening or taking Antwerp.
The first, crossing the Meuse, is a possibility. Taking Antwerp? Highly unlikely simply because the Germans lack the necessary units to go that far. In any case, the likely eventual outcome is actually worse for the Germans. They would have been stretched far thinner than they historically were with their flanks held by a polyglot of marginally capable infantry formations of dubious quality. This would have allowed the Allies to simply counterattack into the flanks of the salient as they originally did, cut off the motorized units, and then see those units sliced to ribbons in battles where the Germans lacked fuel and ammunition to even fight.
The result would look far more like a second Falaise pocket than it actually did with the Germans fleeing the trap leaving everything behind. Doing better in the Ardennes is actually worse for the Germans.

 

On which side are you now? :adolf:

 

I shall follow you to the ends of the earth my Fuhrer. elvicthruster:

 

Hitler also had the second operation following Wacht am Rhein , i.e. Operation Nordwind.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Nordwind

These operations make an interesting combination although like said before, the Germans did not have the forces or the fuel to make anything out of these really.

 

Both Nordwind and the Bulge were lost causes. Like so many other operations I guess Hitler looked at the map and saw his divisions and decided them to do this and that. But he forgot about logistics (much like his pet Rommel) and that cost him dearly. Initial success and then bang! Stopped dead in your tracks.

I have argued many times over that the biggest problem the germans had during the war was their lack of strategic thinking and inovating new tactics as the blitzkrieg faded. Many operations were a success due to blind luck. As the war progressed the Allies (and especially the USSR) managed to slow the germans behind schedule, and the logistic problem raised its ugly head.

 

You are forgetting that the commander in chief of Germany was Hitler and he was not only a military leader but a political one as well. You will continue to fail to understand Hitler's actions towards the end of the war if you ignore this fact. As I said earlier, Hitler's decision to launch the Ardennes offensive made political sense. He really didn't have better options at this time. No, the offensive had little chance of success in the short term and none at all in the long term bar a miracle. But a chance at a miracle was better than resigning himself to ultimate defeat by assuming a defensive posture. And a defensive posture would only have made everyone in Germany aware that defeat was inevitable and they would quickly have realized that it was better to surrender than fight on in an obviously doomed final stand. The Third Reich would have disintegrated as an every-man-for-himself attitude would have taken over. Hitler's decision made sense, at least when you consider it from his perspective.

 

Yes, you have a point on the political reasoning but there were other options that would have given Hitler the political and military victory without squandering away his forces. For example, instead of Germany creating the bulge, he could have lured the Americans into a bulge on the Eastern side of the Rhine and then spring the trap encircling the US forces and at least making a dent in their offensive power. It would not change the outcome of the war but it would delay it, give Hitler the political support from the volk and even put a little scare into the allies. What are your thoughts on this possibility?

 

Rundstedt et al were also favoring the "smaller offensive" i.e. taking Aachen back. That would have been a propaganda victory if it had succeeded.