Bulge what if

i recently whats a show on the battle of the bulge. it went into detail about the size of the german and american forces (german infantry - 250,000....6,000 tanks i believe and american infantry was at 80,000 and i dont remember how many tanks). but it was talkin about how the german generals wanted to defend and from what i heard had a pretty good plan for defending germany on the eastern front, but hitler being the "genious" he was decided they needed to attack instead. now my question is, what if they had defended rather than attacked. would the outcome had been the same? would it have lead to talks of peace, and if so would this of changed the whole "east and west berlin"?

 

Longer battle but not peace talks, as the Allied would not agree to any peace negotiations.

 

The outcome by this time of the war as already set in concrete for the Germans, they were going to lose and they had nothing to bargin with. The only difference that could have happened would be how Germany was seperated after the war because if the allies didn't reach far enough into Germany before the Russians captured Berlin, the Russians could claim all of Germany for herself claiming that they did all the work so they deserve the victory.

 

6 thousand German tanks in the Bulge?

 

Would be better sending that force to the Ost Front and use it in defense.

 

could germany have surrendered around that time, before they went to berlin? Different outcome in later years.....one of which maybe hitler wouldnt have killed himself and if he didnt what would have happened

 

Then someone would have done it for him, many did try, one would have to be successfull

 

Well go and find out somewhere.
Read a book, Google info on the Bulge & learn something.

 

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I can see you don't like (EDIT)uninformed people, mate

 

The result of a longer war can be put this way:

The first Atomic Bombs were slated to be used against Germany, not Japan.

 

I have heard people mention that, but i disagree with that, the Japanese threat was more immeninet to the Americans then the Germans, so I would have thought that they would remove the threat closer to home before worrying about somewhere across the world.

Eg.

Britian saw the european threatre as a primary one compared to the asian one and therefore acted on that having more resourses sent to europe then to asia.

When Australia was under attack the Government had troops diverted from around the world and brought back to asia to defend their home before the rest of the world.

The Americans defended asia with marines before they invaded tunisa in support of the Allies already there.

So I say based on past facts that the americans would still have used the atomic bomb on the japanese, removed the threat then worried about the Germans. Because the Germans did not directly effect the Americans way of life except for a few uboats on the eastern coast and some surface raiders, but no direct threat of invasion as compared to the japanese expansion in asia.

 

Yes, it was around that. Plus many more coming on-stream from the Nazi military industrial complex in Antartica.


Ahhh, the joy of Google!

 

The US already had a stranglehold on Japanese shipping, and could use "strategic bombing" to raze cities to the ground at a marginal cost in terms of lives. Considering the rate of the Soviet advance in Germany and Truman/Churchills's distrust of the Soviet Union, anything that ended the war faster and kept Germany's borders as far east as possible was fair game. In this case, the atomic bomb.

Not to mention that all it would take is one A-bomb over Berlin...even Hitler's bunker couldn't save him from that. And the US was producing more bombs for Japan, it wasn't as if they were going to stop at the production of two bombs.

 

But just because they only needed one bomb on berlin didn't mean that it would not have wasted had the war gone on longer. Japn as I said being closer to the americans would become the frist target still. In my opnion

 

Tomcat, remember there was an agreement made that the threat in Europe would be dealt with first, and then the Pacific. The Japanese, particularly after the battles of Midway and the Coral Sea, were not a potentially expanding threat. They could be contained. The Germans had to be stopped and pushed back in order to free a greater population base that could begin rebuilding efforts, thereby freeing the manpower in Europe of all Allied nations to concentrate on the Japanese. The use of the atomic bomb anywhere, was not a decision made lightly or easily, or with the desire to use it multiple times. And yes, Germany, was the original target - if necessary. Japan became the target because of the Samurai code and experiences of the US Forces throughout the Pacific and specifically in the Japanese home islands that the cost in lives - particularly of young Americans - in a conventional war would exceed the cost of dropping the bomb in Japan.

Back to the original what if - as Kai states, there was never a belief by the Allied nations that peace could be negotiated with Germany - particularly Hitler. Chamberlain tried that earlier and Hitler and his government proved over and over again that they were totally duplitious and their world could not be trusted. The War in Europe would have dragged on, Stalin would have had a greater human resource with which to wage war against Germany (the millions who died because Germany invaded Russia), quite likely have had the means to overrun a reeling Europe and Allied countries post victory over Europe. Again, my 2 cents.

PS I'm not an expert or particularly learned on the Pacific or the Eastern Front, I've just applied what is logical based on what I do know about World War II from General Reading and self-education.

 

Laudable statement, I wish more people followed this kind of wisdom. Pos. Rep. on the way to you, Michelle