North Africa

What would have happen if Hitler delayed Barbarossa to insure victory in North Africa and Iraq?

 

That really depends what his course of action would be and the timing.

Remember that the DAK arrived after the MEF were divided into different duties (Greece etc.)

At any rate the germans would have been forced to protect their eastern boundary.

A more interesting question is what if Mussolini had not attacked Greece, and let Barbarossa start when it was intended to start. Would the extra time allowed the germans to lay siege on Moskva, or captured it?

The Soviets might not have rallied to the cause if Stalin was forced to flee Moskva, and proven himself incompetent. Or what if the Germans had captured Leningrad aswell?

(I'm sorry for shifting the focus of the post Richard.)

 

This has been a heavily debated event. Had Hitler implemented Barbarossa in April like he originally wanted, then his armies would have encountered General Mud and he still would not have arrived at Moscow any earlier. Or so the debate reflects that point.

 

Better would have been that Hitler ignored North Africa and concentrated on the Soviet Union. Germany had no seapower to persue an effective campaign in North Africa or the Middle East in general. There were no useful and recoverable resources in these areas that Germany could effectively use. Oil required extensive capitalization and shipping to make it useful. Germany had neither in abundance to make this happen. What other resources these areas might provide were also not likely to prove useful for exactly the same reasons.
Even if Germany does choose to concentrate on these areas the lack of seapower ensures that eventually they will lose control of them to the Allies. The vastness of these areas also means that Germany will have to provide substancial resources to garrisoning them once they are occupied.
None of this aids them in their original objective of Eastward expansion for libenstraum.

 

Though I don't think it would have helped Operation Barbarossa, it would have been wiser to have stayed out of Africa. As T.A. has pointed out there is nothing there.

Better to have abandoned Mussolini and let him expend his poor armies there, then take Italy.

 

Delaying Barbarossa, in terms of years not months, was exactly what Hitler should have done.

Before then the SU were Hitler’s ally and he could have easily done enough to keep things that way - for long enough anyway. He had Germany’s ‘underbelly’ protected by France, Italy and Austria. They in turn needed to secure their southern front, i.e. the Mediterranean moat. Vichy France and Italy already held much of the North African coast. However, did this did not prevent British dominance of the Med because Britain held Gibraltar and the Suez Canal – Egypt was mostly significant because of Suez.

On the west was fascist Spain, not a threat – not a help, but not a threat. On the east was the desperately important area of the Middle East. Desperately important because in that region lay essential oil and the gateway to more, and, the underbelly of the SU. Knocking out Suez would also have had a dramatic effect on a major line of communication for Britain. With Suez denied and the Atlantic blockade, Britain would have been very constrained indeed.

To achieve this Hitler held all the aces. Spanish non interference in the push through to take Gibraltar, Vichy and Italian forces in N. Africa, Vichy forces in Syria, and Italy complete with an Air Force and Navy protruding right down the middle. The naval offensive, IMHO, would need to be approached cautiously, but, with the RAF defending Britain, the Axis could easily have achieved air superiority over the Med. With the resources available by not mounting Barbarossa, Gibraltar, Egypt and Palestine would have fallen decisively and relatively quickly. The Axis would then have the much improved and economical position of largely controlling the Med by holding Gib and Suez – just as the British did. If the need ever came, Suez could have been nullified by simply blocking it.

Across the Adriatic, Yugoslavia, Albania, Greece – with respect – were soft targets. Albania was already unofficially Italian who had sponsored it for years, controlled production and trade, and owned Zog the dictator. Yes, he called himself a ‘king’ but he ‘ruled’ as a one party state by the grace of Italy – similar to Menelik in Abyssinia 45 years earlier, but that’s another story. As Germany showed Yugoslavia and Greece were quick kills, and with materiel and military support for the Italians, even quicker.

The SU would now be very worried as they find themselves in a similar position to Poland after Hitler took Czechoslovakia. They may have broken their German treaty first with pre-emptive strikes, but, this is where the skill of the Germans would have come in by doing as little as possible to rouse the SU while securing Gib and Suez. THEN, and not before, a well orchestrated strike east from Croatia to Palestine while maintaining adequate forces around a second line of defence on SU borders. The object being to deter invasion from the SU but not blatantly show any intention to invade them – probably wouldn’t have worked for too long.

Now Hitler is in a proper position to invade the SU on several fronts with a secure ‘back door’ and significantly reduced SU support from Britain – the next target after the effective fall of the western SU.

To complete my war, encourage Japan to attack the US – promise them anything in private – then condemn their attack when they do it and offer assistance to the US.

No.9

 

In the 'Dead men talking' programme, the decision to rush attacking the USSR in 41 rather than 43 was due to Hitler having Parkinsons disease.(no cure for it, and hardly the Aryan ideal to shake like a leaf) His increasingly rash and unfounded decicions (often trying the same thing over again) was due to his SPEED addiction. (beeing in the potion given by his doctor, and later administered with a syringe)

 

Your right that mud and the weather would not allow an invasion much sooner than in real life, but if Hitler went to Moscow instead of heading south to encircle Kiev armies, Moscow would be under German control.

 

Think Again the following comes from TheRedBaron when I bought this subject up in the Russia at War Forum name of the post Kiev a error?

 

Although taking Moscow would allow the Germans to control the central rail hub of Soviet supply I don't believe it would destroy the Soviet will to fight. I am not sure there is anything that could be done to remove the Soviet will to fight. This means that the battle continues even though Moscow is held. Without a change in German military industrial policy (moving to full wartime footing) the Soviet state continues to heavily out produce the German forces. The German supply line is long and harried and even when uninterrupted cannot bring enough munitions and armor to keep up with what the Russians throw at the defenders.

 

I think you are overrating the importance of the Suez Channel. In any case the Suez was already effectively blocked a very little Allied freight traffic was passing through the Med, it was going round all the way south to the Cape of Good Hope and the up, through Suez (ok, I grant you that) and then to Alexandria.

As for the Mid East oil, that is a mirage. Granting that Rommel got there, please explain to me in very precise terms how would they then bring that same oil back to Europe. Who would be the technicians to recover the blasted wells, drill for new ones, establish the transportation lines from say Kirkuk to Leipzig (rail? barge? pipeline? oiler? camel back?). Who, where, with what, when?

After final victory, perhaps after long, long years. Before that? Completely out of the question.

 

If Hitler had not started Barbarossa, politically it would have turned interesting to see what position the USSR would hold within a couple of years when the US would finally enter the European war one way or the other. (And without the US there would be no invasion of the continent.)

The Russians were involved by supplying Germans so would Roosevelt consider them the enemy on that basis despite Churchill´s belief that the war in Europe could be won only by getting Russia to war against Germany. So what side would Stalin pick? Probably trying to stay neutral but could he stay that way?

 

Russia staying neutral would indeed have been a diplomatic problem, as well as a military one. With Russia truely neutral the German military would have had a much greater presence in other fields of conflict. I think this would have endangered Turkey and possibly Spain. Hitler had to expand somewhere.

 

Russia does not exist at this time. The Soviet Union is what is there. The country of Russia was gone when the Bolsheviks siezed power.

 

Richard 42, to reply to the TheRedBaron's answer, going south will wear the tracks just as much as going for Moscow, going for Moscow with 90,000 Soviets all disorganized from the Battle at Smolensk, is much better than many more in the two months token going south, which I might add they did serious damage to them in their final reach for Moscow. They would have logistic problems and equipment difficulties, but they had that in Typhoon and still came close. Typhoon was also during the winter months while an earlier attack may miss the mud. How would the Red Army hold the Germans with a lot fewer soldiers, no defences prepared, disorganized, low morale after Smolensk while German morale is through the roof, German tanks in better condition compared to later, no winter to interfere with them reaching Moscow. I'd say, Moscow would have fallen.

 

Lets say they did result would had been a waste only to see the Soviets counter attack in 1942.

Just to quote myself from another post - Russia is a much bigger country more man power, more factories more weapons and so on. Right from the start; AH was a fool who lost what ever the year he attacked game over.

 

Moscow would have been pointless

 

You make it seem as if the Soviets had unlimited manpower. By 1943, the Red Army was having major manpower shortages and relied on tactics to keep from losing to many soldiers. Also, I believe Moscow was a transport hub and all land west would be hard to fight for without it. And most Soviets live in the west. They did not have unlimited manpower. I believe the Germans had about 40% of the Soviet population by 1942. That means about 150 million still in Soviet Union. With most under German influence, the Soviet numbers get lower. Time is not on the Sovit side as much as people believe it was.

 

AH lost the war on 22nd June 1941. A catalogue of blundersand to name one, failed to take in to account the logistic situation.

On the eve of Operation Barbarossa the army was only one third motorised unlike the Einsatzgruppen who were fully motorised just goes to show the real war was against the Jews.

 

YEAH I GUESS THE GERMANS WOULD HAV LARGE AMOUTS OF OIL BUT IN THE END I DIDNT MAKE MUCH DIFFERNCE COS THEY DIDNT REALLY A VAST NUMBER OF TANKS TO EXPLOIT THIS OIL WITH OR FIGHTER PLANES.