Does anyone know if Hitler had any documented thoughts or opinions on the campaigns in the Pacific, if he was impressed with the style of warfare the Americans fought against the Japanese, the numerous large amphibious assaults, impressed with US naval capacity, or the aggressive way American fought and took the war to the Japanese, and were just as brutal to take it to the Japanese? I know Hitler said that Japan never lost a war in 2000 years so they would tie down America and win, and the the Japanese were too fanatical for the US to handle.
Are you talking about the naval affairs conferences that Doenitz made sure the transcripts weren't destroyed?
Doenitz felt the Germany navy fought an honorable war, and at Nuremberg admiral Nimitz gave supporting testimony that helped save Doenitz's life, stating the US also had the order that no Japanese crew that was torpedoed by a US vessel would be saved, that they left them to the sea for their fate. The Germans employed the same strategy in the Atlantic against Allied ships. Doenitz subs also sunk civilian ships that resulted in civilian deaths as well, so I don't know how "honorable" they were, but he dodged the hangman's noose. I think he should have at least got the same amount of time Speer got in prison, but he only did ten years.
Yeah, The Führer Conferences on Naval Affairs, 1939-1945 Fuehrer Conferences on Naval Affairs, 1939-1945 Hardcover – April, 1990 by Jak P. Mallmann Showell (Author) Used copies from $4.82.
Hitler and Nazi-Germany didn't know the truth about the war in the Pacific Ocean. There were huge differences between the allied and the japanese news. Hitler himself was very happy about the japanese successes and their way of warfare in 1942. No wonder, his only respected partner so long were the Finns. He liked the Pearl Harbour attack (on a sunday morning, without declaration of war). He still regarded the american soldiers as less brave as the brits in 1944 prior the battle of the Bulge, so i can't imagine he was impressed by their warfare in the Pacific Ocean.
I've read contradicting things about Hitler and America. I've read that he thought we didn't have the stomach for a fight, then I read where he said we would be his most dangerous enemy and he didn't want war with America the most, admired our segregation and the push west, etc.
Hitler's deeply-held racial prejudices made him see the US as a decadent bourgeois democracy filled with people of mixed race, a population heavily under the influence of Jews and Negroes, with no history of authoritarian discipline to control and direct them, interested only in luxury and living the "good life" while dancing, drinking and enjoying negrofied music. Such a country, in Hitler's mind, could never be a serious threat to a disciplined country like National Socialist Germany. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/German_declaration_of_war_against_the_United_States_(1941)
I've seen him contradict himself on America, stating along the lines of what you said on one hand, then saying the Aryan portion of America was most dangerous, we were cowboy fighters who pushed the Indians out, liked our racist aspects of segregation. He did believe the Jews pulled the strings behind the scenes.
First on what he may have felt about the US side of the Pacific War you must consider his sources of information. American 'propaganda' which i'm sure he largely discounted as such, information from his ally Japan who lied to themselves largely and what his own intelligence network could ferret out. Needless to say he would have a mixed array of information, and likely a skewed opinion of American naval operations. As to his opinion of the US in general he was probably more worried about mixed race control conspiracy that threatened to get in the way of his plans. Then also he had a tendency to tell a audience what they wanted to hear, or at least what he thought they wanted to hear. In the latter half of the war he told them whatever he felt like dependent upon the balance stress and chemicals in his body.
Every navy that used submarines ended up operating that way. It's not a matter or morality or policy, just the characteristics and capabilities of subs. If today's subs ever fight a campaign against merchant shipping, they'll do the same thing; they're even less capable of observing 'cruiser rules' than their predecessors. The Germans actually did more to aid survivors than submarines of any other nation, in WWI and WWII. There were many cases of them assisting survivors when they could do so without risk to themselves, even sending plain-language distress calls on occasion. We almost never read of such actions by American, British, or other submariners.
