ORIGINAL: Szilard
ORIGINAL: ColinWright
More to the point, it would follow that Hitler could no more have staged the Nazi revolution and then refrained from embarking on World War Two than one can get married and then refrain from having sex.
He could have kept all the energy focused on persecuting internal "enemies", I guess. But on the other hand, Germany seems to have been pretty much on the verge of bankruptcy by 1939, due to the economic incompetence of the regime, so without some quick wins & booty & slaves flowing back from them, the no-war strategy maybe wasn't that great either as it may very well have led to unrest & overthrow. At any rate, Hitler was nervous about this kind of thing, particularly in the early stages of the war. For an incompetent evil madman he was a pretty good domestic politican, hard to dismiss as a Nervous Nelly.
Hitler was hardly incompetent -- at least through 1942. He was a decisive voice for panzers, a large air force, the 'Sichelschnitt' plan for the attack on the Western Allies, forming a temporary alliance with the Soviet Union, and increasing the troops assigned to
Barbarossa. All vital to Germany's initial success. Moreover, with the exception of increasing troop strength for
Barbarossa, all were revolutionary moves.
On the other hand, he opposed allowing the SA to supercede the regular army, opposed
Seelowe, and opposed the 1942 plan to invade Malta. All dubious ideas that were best left unimplemented.
Now let's look at some of those actions usually described as errors that he committed prior to 1942.
Going to war in 1939. He'd hardly have benefitted by waiting. In 1939 Germany was far more prepared for war relative to its opponents than it would have been later. As to going to war at all, while you see economic reasons for the necessity, and I see the an inernal revolutionary dynamic as forcing the move, we seem to agree that Nazi Germany had to go beat up
somebody.
Not destroying the B.E.F. at Dunkirk. This was hardly Hitler's error alone. Rundstedt and Goering played a vital role -- and the magnitude of the error was seen by few until it was too late. On the whole, an interesting little chapter in the history of civil-military relations and considerations of internal politics -- but certainly not a purely military blunder simply committed by Hitler.
Not invading Britain. As was said at the time,
Seelowe would have been a desperate move for a desperate situation -- and Germany was not in a desperate situation. It would have acquired phenomenal foresight in the Summer of 1940 to realize that Geramny was in fact in a desperate situation. This is not the same as to say Hitler couldn't have decided to go for
Seelowe anyway -- but it was hardly incompetent to refrain. The equivalent would be to label Eisenhower as 'incompetent' for insisting on a broadfront advance in 1944.
Invading Russia. The consensus was that Russia would be a pushover -- and why not? In World War One, Germany had beaten her while losing to the French and British in the West after four years of trying to prevail. She's just beaten the French and British in six weeks -- and moreover, the Red Army has just demonstrated staggering incompetence in her 1939 advance into Poland and her attack on Russia. Why shouldn't Russia be a pushover? It's a bit like if I've just beaten the Seattle Seahawks 70-0: I can pretty well figure on being able to handle the local college team.
Kursk. Similar to Dunkirk, really. Zeitzler and others were really the big fans of this. Hitler admitted the idea of the attack 'made him sick.' He'd been talked into it, but he also could have been talked out of it: it was hardly his error alone.
I could go on, but the central point is Hitler was NOT militarily incompetent. He was actually a pretty good generalissimo. It's very doubtful if Germany would have enjoyed anything like the military success she did absent his contributions.
I think you have to look at the possible scenarios mainly from this domestic political viewpoint. Surely Hitler's agenda was to establish himself as the new Super Bismark by recovering the old borders & extending them, and taking out the French even more decisively than in 1871. In the generally addled German worldview of the time, that was the big national dream and by doing it he gained an absolute domestic mandate. If you zap Hitler with a lightning bolt in 1939, the result is either extended domestic chaos or the emergence of another leader/group with the same agenda - presumably the Wehrmacht.
IMO, that's the most interesting what if, because the most plausible. Replace Hitler with a Wehrmacht leadership in 1939, and what happens? I think they would be driven by much the same pressures and agendas: a state with serious economic structural flaws; a deep shared belief in war as the preferred solution to political problems (since at least 1871); a short-term military opportunity to get an absolute mandate by zapping the coridoor and taking out France at a (barely) acceptable risk level.
I doubt it. First, until Poland went off without French and British intervention, OKH was absolutely terrified of the prospect of going to war -- and so were the German people. One could argue that Germany was headed for war
eventually -- but in 1939, it was Hitler pushing a reluctant family out the door and into the car.
Similarly with the plan that producing lightning victory in the West. Hitler was
the decisive voice for adopting Manstein's plan -- indeed, he been advocating something like it off his own bat. Drop Hitler and the wise voices of conservatism probably have their way.
But after taking out France - what then? Where would the mandate lead a Wehrmacht-led state? I think you can be sure that it would continue to be diplomatically & grand strategically mediocre, but not as inept as Hitler. It's doubtful that it would pre-emptively strike Russia. But what else?
It's also doubtful that Russia would docilely sit still and do nothing. The consensus seems to be that she would have finished off Finland in the Summer of 1941 and then had a go at Germany herself in 1942. Given that now her army is requipped with T-34's and that now it's hardly going to be surprised, it's doubtful that Germany would be better off than she was historically. It's also very questionable if the revolutionary Nazi state would have docilely accepted a conservative military dictatorship that was quite out of sympathy with the Nazi programme for social change.
