What if Hitler invaded the Middle East first?

Germany needed natural resources, mainly oil, to keep their war machine from grinding to a halt. the Ploesti fields and what they acquired in trade from Russia were not enough They were already at war with England from 1939 to before the Russian campaign, and they controlled most of the oil rich areas within the middle East in Iraq and the surrounding areas. Instead of invading Russia head on before knocking England out, what if Hitler sent his Barbarossa force into an all-out assault in the Middle East through Turkey to get the British controlled oil fields, knocking out England's main oil supply, while simultaneously giving them better access to the Caucasus without having to fight their way through Russia which eventually cost them the war? Could this have changed the outcome of the war? Yes, Hitler hated Communism, wanted to subdue the Slavic race, and take European Russia and its resources as Lebensraum, but if he put his political/racial goals aside to think strictly in military success, could this have turned the tide of the war truly to the Axis?

 

1)Why would the Ploesti fields and the oil from Russia not be enough ? Besides, you are forgetting the most important oil source : synthetic oil

2)The ME was NOT Britain's main oil supply

3)The Barbarossa force (150 divisions) through Turkey was out of the question .

 

While I enjoy a good WI as it get's the brain thinking looking at just the basic problems of which there are a few:

1. Time frame: How long would such a campaign take? Smashing 150 divisions through Turkey might seem simple enough except for the fact the road's and rail couldnt support so many divisions so all the extra man power and strength is actually going to cost you time due to both forces getting inter mixed losing unit cohesion and supplies being held up from road's clogged with troops and vehicles. While going through Turkey seems like the easier solution it is far from it and rather a more complicated one. You would actually be more successful sending through a single Corps then a full army.

2. Assuming you smash through Turkey then what? The amount of time it would take to rip through Turkey would allow ample time the British and Commonwealth forces to fully destroy the oil infrastructure. Even if the infrastructure wasn't fully destroyed then how do you get the oil back? the Axis lack the oil tankers in enough capacity and no pipe line yet exists.

3. Turning neutral and friendly populaces against you: By attacking Turkey you would be sending out a message through the Middle East that no one is safe, Groups that had historically thought beside Germany and Italy in WWII would thus be less likely to and have far less support from the general populace.

4. Single point of attack: In your scenario there is a single thrust through Turkey with a force so large it is not needed, In fact such a force would leave Europe completely open for a Soviet Invasion, While RAF/Commonwealth air forces bomb the forces clogging the limited roads in Turkey the Soviet forces could be ripping through Eastern Europe with no forces to oppose them. If sending a smaller force then what? You have to divert further resources to occupy Turkey, You have to deal with British/Commonwealth forces coming from the South and Soviet forces from the North. You would have just stretched your forces for no actual gain.

5. Scenario doesn't include joint op with NA forces. Even if such a move was to be complemented any sane general would realize chances of success would be greatly increased if the allied forces are divided, Only way to do that is to Launch NA forces into a full on offensive, Send the Italian Navy out to harass the British fleet (preventing them from bombing the coastal roads the Axis would have to eventually use coming out of Turkey) etc...

6. For all of this to work it would require Russia to not invade till 1943 for anu net gain to be effected, It is widely known that Stalin planned to invade in 1942.

 

I like also to dispel an other old myth about oil: the fact was that the main oil source for Germany was ...Germany herself.


1940 : German production (crude,synthetic):4.8 million ton/Imports : 2.1 million ton (ratio :70/30)

1941:5.7 million /2.8 million (ratio :67/33)

1942:6.6 million/2.3 million (ratio:74/26)

1943:7.7 million/ 2.8 million (ratio:73/27)

1944:5.6 million/0.9 million (ratio:86/14)

 

I named Turkey, but I should have said other routes, like if they put all those forces in North Africa and Rommel drove through Egypt into the Middle East. I was just curious because according to a BBC show Secrets of World War II the Ploesti fields made up more than 60% of their oil before they invaded Russia, and oil ended up being a major problem for the Germans towards the end of the war, which I'm sure bombing of German infrastructure affected the synthetic production to have some affect.


And America was also supplying a fair amount of oil for the Allies so even if Germany took Iraq, etc, it probably wouldn't have had too much of an effect right away.


So from the answers it looks like it wouldn't have made too much of a difference and wouldn't have been a top objective to take the middle east, but rather how Hitler had hoped Operation Blue would bring his Russian invasion troops into the Caucasus to meet Rommel's forces that were supposed to break through Egypt and into the middle east. That bit about Operation Blue was also from the same BBC documentary.


I've read a few different ideas regarding Stalin leading to the same means: He was trying to buy time to build up his forces because he knew there would be an eventual showdown with Germany because of Hitler's views, etc and figured Hitler would make the first move. Another was that he planned to attack when his forces were ready. I've also read that he never thought Hitler would break the neutrality pact, was shocked, and that he purposely stopped building frontier defenses in the West as to not offend Germany, and kept his forces away from the Western border. I've also seen the exact opposite view that he had troops on the border waiting and he built up forces for that purpose in the West. My point was that I'm sure if the Germans made headway in the Middle East and were close to the Caucasus and Southern Russia, he would intervene.

 

The Africa Korp as it was was about as large of force as the Axis powers could support in North Africa. The main problem was the local log net.

 

The German strategy in NA was in fact defensive : there was nothing in the ME that the Germans could use ,thus,they never would /could go farther than the Canal .

When Blue started, the AK was still more than 2000 km away from the Caucasus .

 

Addition to the German oil import figures

1940: 2.1 million :SU :0.7 million /Romania : 1.3 million

1941:2.8 million :SU:0.3 /Romania :2.1

1942:2.3 : all from Romania

1943;2.8:Romania : 2.4

1944;0.9 million : all from Romania

 

Care to post the figures for Italy during this period? Was the Italian oil transhiped through Germany and included in those figures or not?

 

The Middle East option was put forwards by the German Navy. Malta and Gibraltar were the key bases. The problem Hitler faced was that he could not reconcile the demands of his potential Allies . Mussolini and Franco all wanted some of Vichy France's North Africa.

Hitler wanted to put right what went wrong with the Second Reich. Its the core of his political; appeal. Putting it right meant revisiting the two front war problem that Germany's strategists thought they inevitably faced. Attacking France then Russia is what Hitler's military policy was all about. The defeat of France in 1940 meant that Hitler had already done better that the Kaiser. The next step was to beat the Russians - just like the Kaiser's army did.

The conquest of the Middle East or even England was not anywhere on Hitler's bucket list.

 

I've read two different ideas when it came to Hitler's plans. One was that he never intended war with the West, and that all his goals were to the East, and that if he could fix most of the bad wrongs in the Treaty without war with the West than so be it. The other was Hitler was indeed planning on going to war with the West around 1943 when the Plan Z naval project was well along.

 

"Plan Z was the name given to the planned re-equipment and expansion of the Kriegsmarine (German navy) ordered by Adolf Hitler in early 1939. The fleet was meant to challenge the naval power of the United Kingdom, and was to be completed by 1948. Development of the plan began in 1938, but it reflected the evolution of the strategic thinking of the Oberkommando der Marine (Naval High Command) over the two decades following World War I. The plan called for a fleet centered on ten battleships and four aircraft carriers which were intended to battle the Royal Navy. This force would be supplemented with numerous long-range cruisers that would attack British shipping. A relatively small force of U-boats was also stipulated.
When World War II broke out in September 1939, almost no work had been done on the new ships ordered under Plan Z. The need to shift manufacturing capacity to more pressing requirements forced the Kriegsmarine to abandon the construction program, and only a handful of major ships—all of which had been ordered before Plan Z—were completed during the war."

"In the short time from the introduction of Plan Z to the beginning of war with the United Kingdom on 3 September only two of the plan's large ships, a pair of H class battleships, were laid down; material for the other four ships had started to be assembled in preparation to begin construction but no work had been done. At the time components of the three battlecruisers were in production, but their keels had not yet been laid down. Two of the M-class cruisers had been laid down, but they were also cancelled in late September. Work on Graf Zeppelin was cancelled definitively in 1943 when Hitler finally abandoned the surface fleet after the Battle of the Barents Sea debacle."

-http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plan_Z


Plan Z was never going to happen once the general war broke out. Obviously, when these plans were made, (1938) Hitler believed he could keep on intimidating the West (UK & France) without them actually doing anything in response. The OKM clung desperately to them, because to do otherwise would be abandoning hope for a glorious Navy. The USSR put paid to those plans.

 

From the AHF (German oil Post 59)

Romanian oil exports to Italy (Albania included),followed by the % of the Romanian production /exports (my calculations)


1938 :560,475 ton = 8 % of the production and 11 % of the exports

1939:629,350 (10 % of production /13 % of exports)

1940:342,943 ( 6 and 10 %)

1941:761,667 (14 and 20 %)

1942:862,179 (15 and 24 %)

1943:391,354 ( 7.5 and 12 %)

From what I know,these exports did not pass through Germany,but were transported by ship to Italy .

 

During the war years Germany was essentially responsible for the allocation of all Romanian oil. Italy could only get it if Germany allocated it to them. Depending on how one looked at it I can see some confusion possible in whether or not the Italian oil was also considered German oil.

 

This is not correct .

1)During the war, the exorts were going down in absolute figures and in %


2) Romania was deciding the oil allocation.

a) The oil production was going down

b) One could not predict the oil production of the following year

c) First came the allocation for domestic needs,and,this was going up .

d) The rest was for the export,but ,the export figures also went down :absolutely and in %

Every year,there was a scene of bargaining:the Germans demanding a lot,the Romanians replying : impossible, and a compromise was obtained .

The problem was : how to "give" Germany and Italy an increasing amount of oil,while the oil amounts for the export were decreasing .

The answer was : by stopping the oil exports to other countries than Germany and Italy : in 1940,45 % (ONLY) of the exports went to Germany and Italy;in 1942,it was 71 %.This was possible because the exports to Switserland,France, the SU,Turkey,etc were stopped .

 

I meant to say Germany controled the allocation of Romania's export oil during the war. I do know that not long after the war started exports to France and Britain stopped. I'm not sure what was sent to the Swiss or Turks but if Italy (and likely France) wanted Romanian oil after 1940 they needed to get it from Germany.

 

When I mentioned the Plan Z, which u stated began in 1938... in a book by Richard Overy called "The Road to War" he stated that Hitler didn't want nor plan to go to war with the West in 1939 which is pretty common knowledge, but he said that Hitler was indeed planning to eventually go to war with England and France around 1943, when as a result of Plan Z his naval development and expansion would have been a lot farther along.