Could Nazi Germany Have Actually "Won"....

[Killjoy Ausf. B]

By "winning", I mean acquiring some manner of European hegemony and/or "empire" equivalent to that territory she had taken at her "high-water mark" - say, the end of 1941...

My contention is that it was impossible for Nazi Germany to have won, regardless of the fact that it seems no other political entity working in Germany at the time could have so much as propelled Germany to a condition wherein she would have been capable of conquering anything...

The reason being the Nazi system itself...
Any ideology which places loyalty to itself - such as the Hitlerian cult of personality - above innovative or "counter-ideological" thinking is bound to fail in the end.
Inside the Third Reich by Albert Speer told of his difficulty in altering the Nazi-dominated system to the degree necessary to fight a war of ever-increasing scope and demand on German industry... Of running into resistance from "dyed-in-the-wool" National Socialists who believed that prior loyalty to Hitler and Nazism justified their positions of power, and the perception that he, an "outsider" - and in their perception mere would-be usurper of their portion of that power - was "meddling" in areas he had no business in.
Granted, one must take Speer's scribblings with the appropriate grain of salt, (He is nowhere near as bad as, say Gobbels, though, whose surviving diary fragments tell a bizarre tale of his ever-increasing area of responsibility within the Third Reich, apparently justified by his appropriately "Nazi-esque" view of the world, and loyalty to uncle Adolf....) but Speer is certainly not the sole source of data incriminating the Nazi system as one which, in the end, threw away its advantages and squandered its strengths the better to serve the unrealistic expectations of itsall-too inflexible leadership...
Perhaps its just as well.
Thoughts?

[Alexander Zöller]

I believe this is an accurate observation. Like most totalitarian systems Nazi Germany developed a certain level of self-destructive elements which eventually could have brought the whole thing down. Quite likely this would have happened not too long after a hypothetical military victory in Europe.

[DennisJMW]

Dennis

Good job on the previous analyses. Additionally, the nazis could not compete logistically with either the US or USSR. The absence of German sea power also prevents any long term hold on their ill-gotten gains. At best they could have instituted a Napoleonic type continental system, and we saw how well that worked.
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[Wirbelwind]

Well, maybe if they done it as subtile(??) as the US/Allies did after the war.... Just be there and claim it without starting a war...

[Killjoy Ausf. B]

Subtlety?

Meaning, perhaps something like the Austrian Anschluss where the "conquest" was achieved via behind the scenes political "shennanigans" rather than an invasion?
This brings to mind an argument once posed to me that Hitler would have been considered one of the "great men" of German history if only the botched bomb plot of 1938 would have killed him before he could have actually began WWII, and started Germany on a road to ruin...

[Wirbelwind]

Yup. Something like the 'Anschluss'. Hmm.... tough one. He probably would be one of the biggest in history.

This is one of the sad facts of WWII (IMHO):Hitler managed to get his country back on track while the rest of the world was trying to make ends meet during the depression.

Nobody (well, maybe Marshall Tito of Yugoslavia?) ever achieved anything like it... as far as I can remember...

[Killjoy Ausf. B]

However...
The "recovery" of the German economy was based on Nazi policies which would have been unsustainable without an eventual war... Or, without eventual drastic decreases in the deficit spending which was a key element in Nazi economic policy, as well as preparing Germany to function economically isolated from world trade markets...
These spending cuts could have been enacted by a successor to Hitler in 1938, but the leading candidate for this post at the time was Herman Goring, who knew little or nothing about economics, and, I suspect, would have wanted to retain the support of the military in order to fend off potential rivals...
The question would then remain as to what Germany's role on the world stage would be if not as a vigorous aggressor bent on conquest.
Stalin has been said to have had designs on Eastern Europe which were pre-empted by Germany's invasion of the USSR following the swift successful campaigns in the West (albeit ultimately unsuccessful against Britain).
If the USSR had invaded portions of Eastern Europe, could Germany have served as the bulwark against "rampant bolshevism" the Nazis attempted to portray her as when the tide in the East turned against them, and a sort of "pan-European" Waffen-SS force was assembled...

Speculative possibilities abound, here - or so I believe - and to avoid afurther tangle of such interwoven threads I shall leave off here...

[CBSPERRY]

I agree with the above analysis and also wanted to add that Germany could not have won not only because of the materiel and political demands for maintaining conquest but also because Germany fought a war of tactics rather than with defined strategic aims. I offer three specific cases in point <although there are hundreds > First, the fact that the German High Command never had a defined objective even in 1941 Operation Barbarossa and shifted objectives so many times that they could never maintain a sustained assualt against Moscow even though they probably had the opportunity .... for example-- the bulk of the panzers were moved from Army group Center to Army Group North and then back again before the assualt on Moscow in November 1941. Second, Splitting of the forces driving towards Stalingrad and the Caucus Oil Fields and Maikop in 1942. Had the forces been concentrated the strategic aim of Capturing Stalingrad and controlling the Lower Don basin ... might have been achieved. Third, the failure of the Germans to take Malta while undertaking innumerable efforts to take Crete. This failure rendered all the mastery of the Crete Campaign all but worthless. My point is this not only did Germany not have the resources or the political efficiency to keep the needed momentum going to achieve victory<even Manstein and Guderian acknowledge this in thier works> but whatever resources they had were often squandered because a total lack of strategic aims. One more case in point ... why did germany never have a four engine strategic bomber other than the Condor... and why when they desparately needed production of fighters in 43, 44 and even in 45 were they producing bombers ??

[Wirbelwind]

Many of the 'desperatly needed' goods were overseen because until the very last days many high ranking Nazi's thought that Hitler would be their saviour in the end anyway.
It's funny to figure out those 'individual thought patterns'.

[CBSPERRY]

I agree Wirbel and Hitler was desparately seeking the one savior "wonder weapon" that would decisively tip the balance of the war and instead cost far more in material and effort than results it produced.... The Dora gun, the Maus ... etc etc etc ....

[Killjoy Ausf. B]

German "strategy" appeared to focus on destroying the enemy army in the field, at which point it was supposed to follow that the nation attacked surrendered. I don't know how logical this sounds, but it worked well enough until Germany faced Britain, which she could not reach in spite of defeating the BEF, and Russia, which simply raised a new army to replace that which Germany carted off to the slave labor camps, allowing her vast territorial extents to render German gains inconsequential to the fnal outcome...

It has been stated that the comparative ease of Germany's successes up to the Battle of Britain and Operation Barbarossa blinded Nazi leaders to the idea that any other outcome might be possible. Also, by the end of 1941, Gemany had captured between 3 and 4 million Russians, and knocked out or taken 10,000 tanks and guns. By all the estimates they recognized, Russia should have been out of fight...

As for that "shifting of Panzer forces" business during Barbarossa... hmmm... I am of 2 minds on this because although I agree that if Moscow was the goal, then weakening the drive toward it was senseless. However, there is an argument that the Russian forces neutralized by this "diversion" from the Moscow drive might have posed a potential threat to AG North' s flank. Also, considering the German "strategy" of knocking out her opponents' armies, it was perhaps with this concept in mind that the "diversion" was undertaken...
As for why AH repeated what appeared to have been a critical error in 1942 in Southern Russia... err... just thickheaded I guess!

Agree wholeheartedly with the Malta thing...

As for the lack of a strategic bomber... There were designs, and even prototypes & small #s produced.
The Ju 89 flew as early as 1936...
Heinkel also produced the 177 & 277. The 277 even flew missions, but only near-inconsequential stuff like dropping those "Fritz-X" type remote controlled missiles.
Problems:
a) I believe it was that immortal genius Erhard Milch who decreed at least 2 things which were ruinous to Germany's big bomber program... First, all German bombers had to be able to dive-bomb. (this might have bee a Jolly Herman idea...can't recall)
This meant that even the Heinkel 177, at 30+ tons, had to be able to do the "swoop thang", which, when coupled with Milky's second disastrous notion - namely that no German bomber should have more than 2 engines - made it so innefective that it might not as well have been built.
Heinkel's attempted solution to "dumb idea #2" was pretty nifty though...2 engines per nacel hooked up to one propeller so it looked like it only had 2 engines... too bad the design caused all those in-flight fires...
Also, German Blitzkrieg didn't require big bombers, but "flying artillery" like the Stuka - perhaps a reason behind "dumb idea #1"
Plus, when all your potential enemies are "right next door", geographically speaking, aircraft with long ranges aren't necessarily a big priority. If I recall correctly, the Condor was a converted airliner design.

Lastly, it is strange that the Nazis clung to Hitler even as his meddling proved more and more to be the undoing of Germany's earlier successes in the war. Perhaps they believed that only by showing their unconditional loyalty would they be allowed to keep the positions of power they apparently coveted so much that they would neither allow the National Socialist system to be reformed in accordance with the demands placed on it by the ever increasing scope of the war, nor depose Hitler in favor of some successor who might toss them out of these same positions...

[CBSPERRY]

Very well thought through post Killjoy.

I have no disagreement with the fact that the germans would under military policy up to that point in history be wise to shift the weight of forces to the North. However, the northern front was progressing on its own ...albeit slower than Center. Under conventional wisdom this would have proven a potential threat to the flank of AG Center. However the total lack of air power and the additional fact that the Russian army was not mobile at that time and even if they were were --far to uncoordinated to mount a serious offensive initiative.

The salient issue is one of momentum.

Moscow was the communications and supply hub. Manstein Lost Victories, Guderian Panzer Leader and Mellenthin Panzer Battles are all very adament that the movement of 1st Pz Division to the north added relatively little to the Northern Campaign while literally destroying the momentum of the Army Group Center. Moreover, what is worse is that they encircled Lenningrad thus creating a more difficult shortage of man power required to maintain this bind on the city rather than take the city and release these troops to more needed salients. Then to move 1st panzer back .... by road no less... causing serious breakdowns and then expecting it in October to be combat ready enough to make a surge towards Moscow .... well you see my point.

The problem is that strategy seemed to be one of the moment rather than the coordinated thought through process that needed to be rendered. Manstein fought vehmently for a coordinated central command for the Russian front which was never to transpire. The history of these heated exchanges with the Furher are documented in many records. The problem is that Hitler chose strategy on resources ... then on whether he could get Turkey to enter the war... then on the destruction of the Russian Army .. .then ... god knows what... it was never unified and the results ... Stalingrad.. The Kursk Salient .... the Conflagration of Army Group Center in 44 ... all of these ... avoidable ... even if germany could not have attained ultimate victory.

As to the bombers you are correct in 36 they did have several designs for 4 engine bombers. If I remember correctly <and I don't know the name of the individual I am not great on the details of the LWaffe> there was a proponent of 4 engine bombers that died in a test crash right around that time and from that point forward the 4 engine strategic bomber initiatives were shelved for the divers .. but I think this also shows an acute feel for tactical sense while totally undermining the strategic policies needed to win a war on the scale Germany waged on 4 fronts.

I mean look at the details to which the WSS and Wehrmacht fielded their units. The americans literally adopted many of the basic policies for movement and command and control even at the platoon level. Camoflage ... enough said there. ... the execution of tactics both offensive and defensive ... masterful... The employment of Strategy ... well .. in a word Bankrupt.

[Killjoy Ausf. B]

I think Moscow's value was at least partially symbolic in spite of the sound strategic reasons for taking the city...
After all, the Russians undertook the herculean effort to move their centers of industrial production from Western Russia to the Urals, why not their overall HQ?
The fall of Moscow could have served as a rallying point for the Russians as easily as a blow to their morale... Eisenstadt (sp?) could have served up a propoganda film based on the driving of Napoleon from moscow a la "Alexander Nevsky"...

I agree the Leningrad siege was idiotic. Second-class "objectives" like this could have been relegated to the Minor axis forces such as those which ended up flanking Sixth Army at Stalingrad. Once the city was surrounded, how "high-quality" did the besieging troops have to be to lob shells into the place all the livelong day?
German troops might well have held those flanks at "Iosville", if only because they would have had better Anti-tank weapons, training, and morale...

A strange thing about the lack of a German "strategic" bomber is that Germany almost won the Battle of Britain with mere medium and dive bombers, but blew it again in the strategic thinking department after the accidental bombing of London brought about the retaliatory British raid on Berlin.
Once Adolf decided to pummel London as priority one, the Brits began to recover fighter strength, and Germany's fortunes over her skies declined steadily...

And those pesky plane crashes!
The General who was supposed to give Paulus a "crash course" in commanding an army also died in one shortly before the offensive began. Paulus was a desk jockey who hadn't even had a field command before Stalingrad... Who knows what tips the dead guy could have given The soon-to-be [I]Feldmarschal[I]?
Something about encircling the city rather than plowing straight into it perhaps?

[CBSPERRY]

Ahhh..you know you raise an interesting point with the von Paulus. I have heard in several accounts that after the initial breakthrough in the drive towards Moscow the sixth army was somewhat lacksadasical about getting into the city itself. Some of this may have been for sound tactical reasoning but I have read snippets in various accounts of swimming in the Don instead of driving through to the targets ..etc... perhaps... and I conjucture here... it is the lack of combat experience held by the then to be field marshal ... that accounted for a less than tenacious drive towards the city itself.

One last thought about Moscow. While I agree that it may have been a political symbolic event, there is one important consideration that Moscow had that was critical to both the Germans and the Russians. What little actual road and rail network existed in Russia ..reference to BH Liddell Hart's chapter "Frustration at Moscow" in the Book The German Generals Talk.. was in the west as the armies moved eastward the road systems became more theoretical than actual. This meant that Kursk, Stalingrad, Lenningrad and Moscow all were important as jump off points for offensives which would have been very difficult to mount even for mass infantry that the russians employed. Could the Russians continue to fight without Moscow. .. yes I conceed that they could have. However, the difficulty in mounting sustained attacks without Moscow and the major cities to serve as supply, communication and transportation depots would have made mounting attacks that much more difficult and thus boosting the value of Moscow as a strategic target far more signiicant in 1941 than it was for Napoleon in 1812. ..reference Caulaincourt..

As for the analysis on the Battle of Britian there is no question that you are correct on all accounts. One interesting aside is that the Germans only mounted one attack against Radar installations and only on the first day of the attacks and it was successful... actually destroyed ... or was it seriously damaged, I forget... the installation at dover... but then they never followed up ..???

[Killjoy Ausf. B]

I think the failure of the Germans to knock out British radar sites might stem from an improper understanding of radar's effectiveness at coordinating air defense, at least on the part of Goring. He allegedly thought its only value as a training device of some sort.
However, this oversight is not surprising, since in when the Battle of Britain began, there were no large-scale air attacks being conducted against Germany.
Could they have, through, say, misinformation as well as misunderstanding, simply not have caught on until factors such as the increased Allied air activity over Germany, the commitment of aircraft to operation Barbarossa, and better defense of British radar installations made it impossible to destroy them?
I am only assuming that the British would have both increased defense at radar sites and tried to misinform Germany via false intelligence that their air defense was coordinated by other means...

I see what you mean about the significance of the Russian metropolitan areas to sustaining the momentum of mechanized forces. Photos of the "mud miasmas" Russian dirt roads became during the Fall rains... Movement of German armor units over long distances by rail... The sheer amount of supplies necessary to move...
Factors I had forgotten.

And as to Paulus again...
That's the sort of thing I meant - the lack of comprehension of the "nuts & bolts" details of conducting a campaign and the way in which to handle a unit as big as Sixth Army.
Never having commanded in the field at all, it seems incomprehensible that Paulus would have been appointed.
Could this have been a "politically" motivated act... Something like the dismissal of Guderian from command by "kicking him upstairs" to an ineffectual administrative position. I don't know much about the situation, but believed Paulus was a.... loyal "yes-man", is what I think I'm trying to say.?