Nazi Germany's Biggest Mistakes That Lost WWII

[larryfulkerson]

Nazi Germany's Biggest Mistakes That Lost WWII
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bYZti3dCQw4

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[loveman2]

For some reason I cannot view that clip in the UK.

There are probably many reasons the Germans lost WW2:-
1 - They never invaded Britain.
2 - They were late in invading the USSR in 1941 as they subdued Yugoslavia first.
3 - Not digging in before winter set in in 1941 in Russia.
4 - Declaring war on the USA.
5- Killing innocent civilians in the East instead of harnessing their hatred of Russia and adding them to their manpower.
6 - Hitler not allowing his generals to have command of the battlefield.

[Curtis Lemay]

The biggest mystery for me is why they never used Sarin. Would probably have been a war-winner.

[RedAss]

For some reason I cannot view that clip in the UK.

There are probably many reasons the Germans lost WW2:-
1 - They never invaded Britain.
2 - They were late in invading the USSR in 1941 as they subdued Yugoslavia first.
3 - Not digging in before winter set in in 1941 in Russia.
4 - Declaring war on the USA.
5- Killing innocent civilians in the East instead of harnessing their hatred of Russia and adding them to their manpower.
6 - Hitler not allowing his generals to have command of the battlefield.

Invading Britain was never really an option. Even if the RAF had been fully subdued, the Royal Navy was going to make any invasion in their ramshackle, thrown together landing fleet a short lived proposition.
Declaring war on the US was an enormous error. Or troops were green, we were under armed... but oh, our factories were easily converted to a war footing and could not be bombed, and our logistics were sublime. No reason for us to war Germany after Pearl Harbor, but he opened that door wide.
All those other factors also played a role, but unfettered production and the UK as a giant aircraft carrier really put Germany in a poor position.

[RedAss]

The biggest mystery for me is why they never used Sarin. Would probably have been a war-winner.

Yeah, weird that he held back on that.

[Platoonist]

The biggest mystery for me is why they never used Sarin. Would probably have been a war-winner.

Yeah, weird that he held back on that.

The current story is that Adolf Hitler was incorrectly advised by IG Farben executives that the Allies would have had similar materials, and probably in greater amounts, and thus concluded a Nazi first-use would provoke a devastating retribution.

However, you do wonder by 1945 with the Nero Decree in effect, why would he have still cared?

[Curtis Lemay]

This is one reason why they should have tried Sealowe. The British were planning to initiate chemical warfare on the beaches if the Germans invaded. German retaliation would have been with Sarin - and Adolf Hitler would have discovered just how far ahead the Germans were in that.

[scout1]

Nazi Germany's Biggest Mistakes That Lost WWII
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bYZti3dCQw4
temp.jpg

Wow .... where to start on this one .....

Off the top of my head ......

- Starting the war in the first place
- Initiating a two front war which they didn't have too
- declaring war on the US after PH, making Roosevelts options much easier
- half assing it in North Africa to "help" the Italians
- not going all in for uboats from the get go and stopping the big surface tubs like the Bismark
- ignoring the a/c jet option for fighters and insisting on bomber approach
- selecting party hacks to run important things like fatso Goering rather than technically comtpent people
- so much to choose from ......

[larryfulkerson]

I'm really glad that you guys are getting a lot of mileage out of this post. Makes my heart warm.

[altipueri]

Invading Russia; didn't need to after the fall of France.

Compare Xerxes not needing to fight the Greeks at Salamis after Thermopylae.

[Platoonist]

Invading Russia; didn't need to after the fall of France.

Then somebody needs to put a slug in Hitler's brain at that point or pull off a coup.

Hitler's obsession was with the East and establishing the lebensraum necessary for Germany to become a true superpower. The vast landscape in between Berlin and Moscow would become Germany’s equivalent of the American west, filled with German homesteaders living comfortably on land, resources and labor appropriated from conquered peoples. How you get him off that fetish, I dunno.

[Simon Edmonds]

From a wargaming point of view, Hitlers biggest mistake was going for Moscow in the Autumn and not Lenningrad. Taking Lenningrad in 1941 effectively anchors the northern end of the front. Army Group Center should have dug in as soon as the rain started falling.
But then Hitler was delusional about knocking off Russia in one year regardless of how many armies were encircled and surrendered. The Soviets had six million reservist's on top of the six million active soldiers. Either the German intelligence fell down really badly or they presented an inconvenient truth that no-one wanted to believe.
Don't get me started on Stalingrad or declaring war on the USA.

[WG]

Speaking of the declaration of war on the USA, Hitler's speech to the Reichstag on December 11, 1941, is an astonishing performance of logical gymnastics. He actually blames Roosevelt (and Jewish bankers) for forcing Germany to attack Poland!

Hitler: The full diabolical meanness of Jewry rallied round [Roosevelt], and he stretched out his hands. Thus began the increasing efforts of the American President to create conflicts, to do everything to prevent conflicts from being peacefully solved.

As for Operation Barbarossa, Hitler claimed in this speech — I have no idea if he actually believed this — that the Soviet Union was planning to destroy Europe, so Germany had to preemptively attack:

With every month I became more convinced that the plans of the men in the Kremlin aimed at dominating and annihilating all Europe. I have had to submit to the nation the full extent of the Russian military preparations. At a time when Germany had only a few divisions in the provinces bordering on Russia, it would have been evident to a blind man that a concentration of power of singular and world-historic dimensions was taking place, and that not in order to defend something that was threatened, but merely in order to attack an object it did not seem possible to defend. The lightning conclusion of the Western campaign, however, robbed the Moscow overlords of their hope of an early flagging of German power.

[StuccoFresco]

As soon as the UK decided to not give up in 1940 and the Soviets decided not to give up in 1941, Germany had lost its only hopes. They couldn't invade the UK in any way whatsoever, they hit the Soviets at their lowest and still didn't win so they had no hope to win after that.

All every other change could have prolonged the struggle somewhat, that's all.

Gas weren't effective enough to justify investing a lot in them, especially with WW2 lacking the prolonged static stalemates that made gas viable as a weapon. The Germans threw everything they had against the Soviets and Allies as the war went on, if gas was seen as effective they would have used no matter the fear for retaliation.

[Curtis Lemay]

Gas weren't effective enough to justify investing a lot in them, especially with WW2 lacking the prolonged static stalemates that made gas viable as a weapon. The Germans threw everything they had against the Soviets and Allies as the war went on, if gas was seen as effective they would have used no matter the fear for retaliation.

The Germans had 5,000 tons of Sarin.

A droplet 1/1000th the size of a raindrop touching you anywhere on your skin will kill you in 60 seconds. You need a full neoprene body suit to survive Sarin. The worst Allied gas (phosgene) only killed about 3% of its victims and could be defeated by a gas mask.

[larryfulkerson]

Gas weren't effective enough to justify investing a lot in them, especially with WW2 lacking the prolonged static stalemates that made gas viable as a weapon. The Germans threw everything they had against the Soviets and Allies as the war went on, if gas was seen as effective they would have used no matter the fear for retaliation.

The Germans had 5,000 tons of Sarin.

A droplet 1/1000th the size of a raindrop touching you anywhere on your skin will kill you in 60 seconds. You need a full neoprene body suit to survive Sarin. The worst Allied gas (phosgene) only killed about 3% of its victims and could be defeated by a gas mask.

I heard through the grapevine that if you think about Sarin too long it'll make you sneeze.

[StuccoFresco]

Gas weren't effective enough to justify investing a lot in them, especially with WW2 lacking the prolonged static stalemates that made gas viable as a weapon. The Germans threw everything they had against the Soviets and Allies as the war went on, if gas was seen as effective they would have used no matter the fear for retaliation.

The Germans had 5,000 tons of Sarin.

A droplet 1/1000th the size of a raindrop touching you anywhere on your skin will kill you in 60 seconds. You need a full neoprene body suit to survive Sarin. The worst Allied gas (phosgene) only killed about 3% of its victims and could be defeated by a gas mask.

Where are yougetting that 5000t figure? I found a total estimate of a tenth to a fifth of that: https://web.archive.org/web/20110429191 ... veGas.aspx

[Curtis Lemay]

Gas weren't effective enough to justify investing a lot in them, especially with WW2 lacking the prolonged static stalemates that made gas viable as a weapon. The Germans threw everything they had against the Soviets and Allies as the war went on, if gas was seen as effective they would have used no matter the fear for retaliation.

The Germans had 5,000 tons of Sarin.

A droplet 1/1000th the size of a raindrop touching you anywhere on your skin will kill you in 60 seconds. You need a full neoprene body suit to survive Sarin. The worst Allied gas (phosgene) only killed about 3% of its victims and could be defeated by a gas mask.

Where are yougetting that 5000t figure? I found a total estimate of a tenth to a fifth of that: https://web.archive.org/web/20110429191 ... veGas.aspx

It's from the Novel "Black Cross" by Greg Iles. In the afterword:

The nerve gases described in "Black Cross" were and are real. Tabun was discovered in 1936; Sarin in 1938; and Soman in 1944. Sarin and Soman are still the most feared war gases in the world. The Nazis produced over 7,000 tons of Sarin by the end of the war. According to official accounts, Soman never reached the mass production stage. However, as a curtain of secrecy descended over all these captured compounds after the Nazi surrender, we cannot be certain that all facts are known.

[StuccoFresco]

I'm not gonna believe a novelist over an historian with access to the British Intelligence's debriefing of the scientist employed by the Nazis to develop their chemical weapons.

[Curtis Lemay]

I'm not gonna believe a novelist over an historian with access to the British Intelligence's debriefing of the scientist employed by the Nazis to develop their chemical weapons.

The link you posted said 12,000 tons of Tabun in 9 years. But only 10 tons of Sarin in 7 years. I find that far more implausible. But believe whatever you want.

But, regardless, Tabun was also a nerve agent - not as deadly as Sarin, but a nerve agent.

Also, I found this on Wiki:

"Sarin can have a short shelf life. Therefore, it is usually stored as two separate precursors that produce sarin when combined."

So...perhaps only the precursors were produced in mass quantities.