The inside history of WWII

[namvet]

In regards to Germany dragged into war, lets look at the facts.

Hitler annexed Austria.
Hitler annexed Czechoslovakia.
Hitler formed the Axis power block.
Hitlers signed a non aggression pact with the soviets.
Hitler invaded Poland. Officially starting WW2.

So exactly where is the dragging into war here?

Oh, and two days after the US declared war on Japan Hitler declared war on the US. As did Mussolini.

Dragged kicking and screaming they were.

Hiter used these annexations to see if the west would stand up and intervene. if we had he was prepared to run for home. his own military told him they needed 4 or 5 more years to ready for war.

[gabosaurus]

Hiter used these annexations to see if the west would stand up and intervene. if we had he was prepared to run for home. his own military told him they needed 4 or 5 more years to ready for war.

You are exactly correct. If Chamberlain had stood his ground and called Hitler's bluff, he would have stood down. There is a good chance that the loss of face would have caused Hitler's opposition to force him from power.

[Tyr-Ziu Saxnot]

Hiter used these annexations to see if the west would stand up and intervene. if we had he was prepared to run for home. his own military told him they needed 4 or 5 more years to ready for war.

I was taught as a six year old child that the thing to do with bullies is knock the hell out of them sooner rather than later! Has worked for me 54 years and running!!
Appeasement, I once thought that was surname of every coward...
Hell, I still do..

Son my dad said, "times are hard and the world is evil. Anybody--anybody hits you , you hit them back harder. If they hit you again you have my permission to stomp their ass! In fact , I insist that you do.
A man must pull his own wagon"....

Hitler was a typical cowardly bully that caused the death of tens of millions because his sorry ass WAS NOT HIT SOONER RATHER THAN LATER!!!
We now have dem/libs (appeasement masters) running this nation.
A very good chance that they will cause millions to die yet again IMHO..-Only this time the millions could be AMERICAN CITIZENS! -Tyr

[gabosaurus]

Anyone in the hierarchy of the 3d Reich that was complicit in the murder of millions of non-Germans is a criminal. Period. Guilty of cold blooded murder.

Your ancestor was a ground troop, right? He didn't know shit but what he had to face. I can understand that.

You can say Germany got sucked into WWII but the fact is, Germany did as much or more to cause WWII as they were victims of the Treaty of Versailles. And. Germany could have won WWII if not for Hitler. For all his ability to manipulate and mesmerize, he was a strategic and tactical idiot. Should have left the war up to those that know what they're doing.

You make outstanding points. The truth is, very few common citizens were members of the Nazi party.

My maternal grandfather believes the Nazi propaganda that the Russians were coming to kill his family. So he went to war. And found that poorly equipped and trained common citizens were no match for the Russian army. So he fled west, like so many others.

Hitler was a deranged psychopath who trusted no one. He had brilliant advisers and field generals who could have won WWII in less than two years. Hitler's tactical mistakes are legendary. His advisers had chilling plans that would have had England ready to negotiate surrender.
Have you ever seen the plans to occupy Newfoundland and use it as a base to attack the U.S.? There were also plans to negotiate a treaty with Mexico that would have allowed the Germans to attack from the south.

[Gunny]

In regards to Germany dragged into war, lets look at the facts.

Hitler annexed Austria.
Hitler annexed Czechoslovakia.
Hitler formed the Axis power block.
Hitlers signed a non aggression pact with the soviets.
Hitler invaded Poland. Officially starting WW2.

So exactly where is the dragging into war here?

Oh, and two days after the US declared war on Japan Hitler declared war on the US. As did Mussolini.

Dragged kicking and screaming they were.

All exactly correct. You left out Hitler's brilliant decision to invade Russia while fighting on another front.

I'm seeing a couple of different POV's here. One, the criminals at the top, vs 2, the soldiers and citizens being led by a screwball government. What happens in the US if you get drafted and refuse to serve? You go to jail. But if Johnson says you're going to Vietnam, or Bush says you're going to Kuwait .... we went. If you buck what the US gov't tells you is right to this day, it will take care of you one way or the other.

I'd say all the average German knew back then was Hitler brought them out of the dust of WWI and they had at least a modicum of prosperity. Racism was world-wide, especially anti-semitism. The US turned away a ship full of Jews and sent it back because we didn't want them here. The Holocaust was hidden by both the US and UK governments for the fear of the appearance of making the war "about Jews". Not saying it's right. How did blacks have it in this country during those same years?

From the POV of the guy humping the pack, there's little choice, and you suffer the consequences of what happens.

Throw in another caveat. The German army felt betrayed by the government with the Treaty of Versailles. They hadn't actually lost the war. Politicians gave it away. They get completely humiliated and emasculated by the allied powers. Along comes a politician who actually WAS one of them, and re-arms them. Makes Germany a world power again, with the most modern military of the day. Who's going to complain? Anyone in the military who opposed his ideas "disappeared".

[Gunny]

I was taught as a six year old child that the thing to do with bullies is knock the hell out of them sooner rather than later! Has worked for me 54 years and running!!
Appeasement, I once thought that was surname of every coward...
Hell, I still do..

Son my dad said, "times are hard and the world is evil. Anybody--anybody hits you , you hit them back harder. If they hit you again you have my permission to stomp their ass! In fact , I insist that you do.
A man must pull his own wagon"....

Hitler was a typical cowardly bully that caused the death of tens of millions because his sorry ass WAS NOT HIT SOONER RATHER THAN LATER!!!
We now have dem/libs (appeasement masters) running this nation.
A very good chance that they will cause millions to die yet again IMHO..-Only this time the millions could be AMERICAN CITIZENS! -Tyr

True. But look at the environment in which they lived. WW I devastated Europe. And WW I was a meat grinder. Modern weaponry using Napoleonic tactics. Everyone wanted to avoid a repeat at all costs. Everyone blames Chamberlain, but the French were just as wuss as he was and right behind him (they're usually behind someone ) Hitler WAS prepared to back down. Hindsight's 20-20.

[NightTrain]

Right up to the end of 1944, the German people thought they were winning the war. They thought the concentration camps were work areas which produced armaments. Hitler was always portrayed playing with children and giving people money and jobs. Germans had no clue how the war was actually going.

The German populace knew they were losing.

You can't have waves of American and British bombers darkening the skies over all your major cities, carpet bombing and fire bombing without knowing how the war was going. Besides that, the German soldiers told their families how it was really going, nevermind what they were hearing over the official radio channels.

The Luftwaffe was decimated and the wonderweapons were too little, too late to make any difference. When you give up air superiority, you've lost the war - because now you've got major problems in transportation of fuel and war materials (like ball bearings) that can't go where they're supposed to because your railways and highways are being beat up by bombers bombing and fighters strafing even if the factories are still intact and producing.

If Hitler had stepped back and allowed his Generals to run the war like it should have been, it would have been a much different war. Operation Barbarosa was a catastrophe and opening the Russian front was monumentally stupid. If he had waited until Operation Sea Lion was complete and taken out Britain first, the odds would have vastly improved.

The development of the ME-262 was a game changer, but again Hitler interfered and ordered them to change that fighter into a bomber which severely delayed introduction of it.

There are a lot of IFs, but the common denominator is that Hitler was over his head and kept interfering where he shouldn't have. Generals like Rommel should have been given an objective and then unleashed without any second-guessing.

[namvet]

they did attack all our coastlines during operation drumbeat jan - aug 42. just a month after Pearl Harbor, the unrestricted warfare against American merchant marine ships off our coastlines. and they were successful. Dönitz and Hitler combined for this attack.
but drumbeat was compromised before it began. in 40 or 41 an RN destroyer forced a uboat to the surface and recovered its enigma machine. so now the the brits were reading everything Dönitz was sending to his uboat fleet. and they had it all here. dates, departures, number of uboats. the whole ball a wax. and they issued a warning in advance to one ADM Ernest J King who ignored the warning because he didn't like or trust the brits.

former uboat ace Rinehard Hardegen thanks King for not interfering

[Gunny]

You make outstanding points. The truth is, very few common citizens were members of the Nazi party.

My maternal grandfather believes the Nazi propaganda that the Russians were coming to kill his family. So he went to war. And found that poorly equipped and trained common citizens were no match for the Russian army. So he fled west, like so many others.

Hitler was a deranged psychopath who trusted no one. He had brilliant advisers and field generals who could have won WWII in less than two years. Hitler's tactical mistakes are legendary. His advisers had chilling plans that would have had England ready to negotiate surrender.
Have you ever seen the plans to occupy Newfoundland and use it as a base to attack the U.S.? There were also plans to negotiate a treaty with Mexico that would have allowed the Germans to attack from the south.

Hitler actually wanted no part of the US. He didn't even want to fight Great Britain in the beginning. His generals didn't want any part of any of it. But you don't question the commander in chief. The entire alliance between Hitler and the German army was tenuous at best. Until Bismark died, Hitler was a lap dog.

They had plans to occupy Ireland as well, in collusion with some Irish who hated Brits more than Germans.

Germany could easily have won WWII but for Hitler. What happens when politicians control the most powerful army on Earth.

[Tyr-Ziu Saxnot]

True. But look at the environment in which they lived. WW I devastated Europe. And WW I was a meat grinder. Modern weaponry using Napoleonic tactics. Everyone wanted to avoid a repeat at all costs. Everyone blames Chamberlain, but the French were just as wuss as he was and right behind him (they're usually behind someone ) Hitler WAS prepared to back down. Hindsight's 20-20.

You will get no argument from me on that. After WW1 Germany had a bad go of it because of the Treaty its politicians signed.
Hitler delivered them a way out of that.. Hitler promised and delivered at first. He also raised the standard of living early on but all that went out of the window when kept playing general and lost the war by doing so.
Had Hitler abandoned the plan to turn on and attack Russia we would have most likely lost.
He damn sure should have never turned on Russia until after Britain was conquered!
The French, white flag warriors , the lot of them.
Charles De Gaulle marched back into France as if he single handedly liberated it. France was liberated by combined efforts of American, Brit, Canadian forces, but primarily it was USA might and planning that did it.. -Tyr

[Gunny]

You will get no argument from me on that. After WW1 Germany had a bad go of it because of the Treaty its politicians signed.
Hitler delivered them a way out of that.. Hitler promised and delivered at first. He also raised the standard of living early on but all that went out of the window when kept playing general and lost the war by doing so.
Had Hitler abandoned the plan to turn on and attack Russia we would have most likely lost.
He damn sure should have never turned on Russia until after Britain was conquered!
The French, white flag warriors , the lot of them.
Charles De Gaulle marched back into France as if he single handedly liberated it. France was liberated by combined efforts of American, Brit, Canadian forces, but primarily it was USA might and planning that did it.. -Tyr

Opening a second front without the means and will to usually ends in disaster. He thought he had Britain isolated and out of it. Had it not been for Roosevelt and Lend Lease, they would have been. He kept taking stuff without securing it. Had he just waited, he could have had everything.

[NightTrain]

Opening a second front without the means and will to usually ends in disaster. He thought he had Britain isolated and out of it. Had it not been for Roosevelt and Lend Lease, they would have been. He kept taking stuff without securing it. Had he just waited, he could have had everything.

Yep, the RAF was on the ropes and were almost finished... but the Germans didn't know that. It was looking very bleak for Britain and then Hitler backed off the raids and cancelled the invasion.

[namvet]

he launched the Russian invasion in June 1941. anticipating being in Moscow before winter. and that's what stopped him. the Russian winter. within site of Moscow.








the Russian counter attack was on 7 Dec 1941

[namvet]

Yep, the RAF was on the ropes and were almost finished... but the Germans didn't know that. It was looking very bleak for Britain and then Hitler backed off the raids and cancelled the invasion.

[gabosaurus]

Yep, the RAF was on the ropes and were almost finished... but the Germans didn't know that. It was looking very bleak for Britain and then Hitler backed off the raids and cancelled the invasion.

I have always considered this the turning point of the war. Hitler got too greedy. He somehow felt the air attacks on London would force a surrender. When it didn't happen immediately, he decided to attack Russia. Which Stalin pretty much anticipated.
If the German navy and Luftwaffe had blockaded the U.K., the Brits would have been forced to negotiate. For some reason, Hitler didn't want that. He wanted outright surrender, which was not coming.
The cat and mouse game between Hitler and Stalin on the Eastern Front makes for fascinating and horrifying reading. How both of them used their own people as pieces on a giant chess board.