In retrospect, where did it go wrong for the Germans?

When they voted for NSDAP.

>>17796371 (OP)
>Postponing the assault on Moscow to help Army Group South near Kiev
>Not being able to persuade Japan to avoid provoking the U.S. into embargoing their oil supply.
Many would consider the first point to be an extremely risky gamble but I think the outcome wouldn’t have been worse for the Germans in the long run. As for the second point, Germany should’ve at least attempted to persuade Japan not to occupy South Indochina, a move which led to the U.S. oil embargo and Japan’s decision to go to war with the Western Allies. If the Germans had succeeded in persuading them to avoid that move, it increases the chance that Japan is confident enough to join the attack on the USSR. There were already plans for this but they were shelved as a result of the U.S. oil embargo.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kantokuen

>>17796371 (OP)
nazi germany losing the battle of britain and air superiority over the channel was the point of no return

1933

>>17796476
this, with the anglos able to get supplies over the atlantic it was over

Cool, man. It's not like we have this thread every single day or anything...

>>17796371 (OP)
Operation Barbarossa. German generals literally ran wargame simulations beforehand and agreed that it would almost certainly fail. But it was Hitler who ignored this and decided to invade anyway because Slavs are inferior Asiatics who couldn't possible put up a fight against Aryan super soldiers.

Goering wanted to carry on the war against England before even thinking about attacking the USSR. He had already conceived of a plan to capture Gibraltar, which probably would have succeeded. England would be choked out of the Mediterranean and would suffer defeats, decreasing their willingness to fight

Probably the years england, france and spain unified. It'd be hard to pin it on just one event but they had that whole decentralization cringe that just kept them weak for too long and they wouldn't have had to worry about the two fronts if they solved that sort of thing 500 years earlier.

>>17796371 (OP)
When they defeated and raped the British into existence in 400 AD.

>>17796371 (OP)
Supporting Austro-Hungary before (and during) WW1

Invading Belgium in WWI

You armchair generals know a thing or two, but not enough. Stop it, don't overestimate yourself.

>>17796371 (OP)
They started the war. Things started going wrong from there.

>>17796468
>Many would consider the first point to be an extremely risky gamble
It's not the fact that it's a risky gamble.
It's more the fact that capturing Moscow isnt war-winning.

>Gshould’ve at least attempted to persuade Japan not to occupy South Indochina
Better communication among the Axis would definetly help.
The problem in this case is that the Japanese government barely had control of their armed forces, so it's even less likely Germany would.

This "Axis can win" discussion usually boils down to the fact that Germany and Japan needs to stop being ideologically compromised to actually make rational, moral and pragmatic decisions.

The seeds of Germany’s defeat were sown early. The core issue was Hitler’s obsession with rapid, decisive victories through Blitzkrieg, which worked like a charm in Poland and France but masked deeper flaws. Germany’s economy was a house of cards: overreliant on plunder and forced labor, with critical shortages in oil, steel, and manpower by 1941. Invading the Soviet Union was the fatal overreach. The Wehrmacht wasn’t equipped for a prolonged campaign against a vast, brutal opponent with endless reserves. Add to that Hitler’s autistic micromanaging streak, which kneecapped his generals’ flexibility, and you’ve got a recipe for disaster.

>but muh Stalingrad was the turning point
Nah, Stalingrad was a symptom, not the cause. The wheels were coming off as early as December 1941 outside Moscow, when the Red Army’s counteroffensive showed Germany couldn’t sustain a multi-front war. Logistical overextension, underestimating Soviet resilience, and dismissing intelligence about their industrial capacity in the Urals; those were the real killers.

Ideologically, the Nazis’ racial dogma screwed them too. Alienating potential allies like Ukrainians, who initially welcomed the Wehrmacht as liberators, was a colossal blunder. Instead of exploiting anti-Soviet sentiment, they went full Einsatzgruppen and turned populations against them.

>>17796550
>Operation Barbarossa. German generals literally ran wargame simulations beforehand and agreed that it would almost certainly fail. But it was Hitler who ignored this and decided to invade anyway because Slavs are inferior Asiatics who couldn't possible put up a fight against Aryan super soldiers.

It's actually the opposite.
The key fault is that the generals who planned Barbarossa catastrophically underestimated Red Army size and fighting capability. It was estimated that the Red Army had a total of 140 divisions, when the real number was over 300 divisions.
Barbarossa was planned for only 6 weeks. Most people forget what an abusrd low time-frame that is, but it gives you an idea of how confident they were that the Red Army would be destroyed and the Soviet Union would collapse after the opening blow.
Hitler did not plan Barbarossa (besides issuing general directives on certain key aspects which is was seperates Operation Otto from Barbarossa) and he pretty much acted on their intelligence.
Both Hitler and the generals knew they were in trouble already by late August when Red Army divisions kept showing up. Barbarossa was never designed to be a push into the interior against a fighting resistance, they were supposed to capture the USSR with its food and oil sources intact, and without any logistical hell. There was no plan B. The attack on Moscow was more out of desperation for a knock-out blow than anything else.

After the war the generals simply blamed Hitler for every mistake because Hitler was dead and couldnt defend himself, and it made themselves look like AAA-star generals for the sake of historical legacy and CV for future jobs.

>>17796371 (OP)
Why was Hitler too AFRAID to attack Switzerland?

>>17796864
>Ideologically, the Nazis’ racial dogma screwed them too. Alienating potential allies like Ukrainians, who initially welcomed the Wehrmacht as liberators, was a colossal blunder. Instead of exploiting anti-Soviet sentiment, they went full Einsatzgruppen and turned populations against them.

This is the one point most historians are in an agreement of.
The best way to defeat Russia is to make them fight each others. Not chasing far-reaching isolated strategic objectives that end up being irrelevant anyway. The Prussian school was obssessed with the doctrine of "Schwerpunkt" which was worthless in Russia.
Arming the locals and setting up independent states, basically re-igniting the Russian civil war. It may not ultimately win the war, but it would have been far more difficult for the Soviet state, especially from 1942 onwards when territory was to be re-captured.

Stalins brutal regime ironically save him because it had pre-emptively created conditions to hold the state togehter even when it was pressed to its limits, and the people in the remaining USSR were able to stomach hard times because they had already been brutalized to live through them before, which also helped holding the state togehter even after it had lost the most important parts in the west.

>>17796884
Why says he was afraid?

It's a post-war propaganda narrative that Hitler was just a mad dog who attacked every country he was able to attack.

Nearly every state that was occupied by Germany, was occupied for a reason, either reactionary to the allies or strategically vital.

Norway - Strategically vital for resources (the British had plans to violate Norwegian neutrality strictly to deny Germany any resources but we dont talk about that)

Denmark - Strategically vital for the success of Norway and Atlantic control (the British invaded and occupied neutral Iceland for the same purpose but we dont talk about that).

Soviet Union - Strategically vital for the oil sources to continue the war against the British empire simultaniously supplied by the US (The British invaded neutral Iran to secure oil sources in their war against Germany but we dont talk about that).

Jugoslavia - Strategically vital because the British had successfully coup'ed the government into a pro-allied one that would enable Commonwealth forces to enter the continent as they were doing in Greece

Netherlands and Belgium - Strategically vital for the success of Case Yellow and the battle for the channel.

*

None of this justifies Germany, and you dont need to be a stormfag to recognize that there is some pragmatic truth to Germanys situation, but ultimately that situation only existed because Hitler started the war. Just pointing out the fact that Switzerland wasnt invaded because it didnt need to be invaded. Normies just assume the Germans were invading shit just cause.

>>17796371 (OP)
when the br*tish welcomed (((christianity))) with open arms

it blows my mind seeing these maps
they really were a mild winter away from winning the war

>>17797063
>they really were a mild winter away from winning the war
I'm sure it does look that way since that map doesn't include the massive elephant sitting just over the Atlantic

>>17797068
the American public would never stomach a push from normandy to moscow
France would be liberated and the US would call it quits

>>17797063
Zoom out.

>>17797074
If the Germans won in the east there wouldnt be a Overlord because it defeats the purposse of opening a western front.

In this alternative scenario, Berlin simply gets nuked.
WW2 becomes less climatic when you realise it really was just a countdown to late-1945 regardless of what happens.

>>17796476
even with air superiority the luftwaffe didn't have an armorpircing bomb. The royal navy still could and would have repulsed any invasion.

>>17797118
It really all depends on the U.S. not joining the war.

>>17797126
lol

>>17797118
this is the most brain damaged take ive seen in a long time

>>17797139
Why?
American was always going to beat everyone to the bomb. It's inevitable.

>>17797118
Tokyo didn't get nuked
the question is how readily would Hitler surrender to nukes

It was one superpower (Germany) vs three superpowers (UK, USSR, USA)
It was always just a math problem
Hitler's mistake was not working around this and compromising with lesser gains in Poland

>>17796371 (OP)
1618

The 30 year war traumatized and crippled the German soul and the effects are felt to this day

>>17797337
>Tokyo didn't get nuked
No, just firebombed to Hell and back, causing more deaths than both nukes combined.

>>17796371 (OP)
>In retrospect, where did it go wrong for the Germans?
The very decision to go to war. It was never going to work. The Nazis only ever had a, at best, 50% chance against Britain alone. They would never have been able to defeat either the USA or the USSR, nevermind both together.

War against Britain and the USA with the Soviets sitting it out just means that German cities start being nuked in 1945. War against Britain and the USSR with America sitting it out just means that the war lasts until 1946, MAYBE early '47 at the latest, but the Reds are taking Berlin.

>>17797337
Tokyo had already been destroyed by the largest bombing raid in history.
The main rationale behind picking Hiroshima and Nagasaki was to bomb a city that had not been bombed, so to show the full potential of the atomic weapon.

>>17797366
I have never read such nonsense in my entire life. Nobody would have nuked anyone without the Soviets in the picture. Britain was very close to proposing peace to Germany, but Barbarossa made them have hope again.

>>17796371 (OP)
At every step of the way, the Deutsch knew what they were doing and approved in a majority decision time after time until it was too late to revert.

>>17797366
Yep, because even if USA stays neutral, they still funnel all the resources and material necessary to the USSR and Britain to win the war.
It was the whole reason why Germany declared war on USA. It wasnt to "honor" their treaty with Japan (whom had not honor their treaty when Germany invaded USSR so Germany did not owe Japan anything), and it wasnt because Hitler was mad for world conquest.
The declaration of war on USA was specfically to enable preventing US shippment in the Atlantic becuse Germany was already on the losing end if it continued.

Germany lost for three simple reasons:
They underestimated British resolve to continue
They underestimated US intervention against neutrality
They underestimated USSR capability to fight

Germany lost the moment they invaded Poland because Britain was never going to sign a treaty with Germany and USA was never going to stay completely neutral against aggressor powers in Europe and Asia, and by removing Poland, Germany now border the USSR and they would inevitably fight because either Stalin or Hitler breaks the pact, and once they fight the rotten structure (as described by Hitler) would not be coming crashing down as 'predicted'.

Want to win the war? Convince Hitler to stop after Czechia. Export National-Socialism through soft power proejction by simply being a model as a successful state and society. Endgame.

>>17797378
>Britain was very close to proposing peace to Germany, but Barbarossa made them have hope again.

Wrong.
The only time Britain was close to open peace talks with Germany was in May 1940 when France was about to fall and Italy was still neutral and offered to act as mediators.
Halifax tried to convince the parlament and cabinet to force Churchill to begin peace talks but virtually everyone said no (the debate was put to rest when the conservative party under Chamberlain firmly supported Churchill) and opted to continue the war. Britain knew that given enough time they would win the war, the question was more about whether the cost would be worth the means, but everyone was in agreement that it would be worse to trust Hitler with another treaty and let Germany hold a dominant positon on the continent through aggressive force.

This was long before Barbarossa had even reached the ears of British intelligence because not even Hitler had announced any plans to invade the USSR to his own generals yet.

>>17797337
>how readily would Hitler surrender to nukes
He wouldn't. That simply was not the German war doctrine. Even if Hitler was fully aware of the nukes and their impact, he would likely order his remaining armies he could muster with Hitler Youth members to stand their ground as that's the more honorable than allowing yourself to be captured by the allies. Capture was also a non-option for much of what was left of Hitlers army by the late war since they were afraid the allies would do to them what they were doing to their own POWs

>>17797394
>Convince Hitler to stop after Czechia. Export National-Socialism through soft power proejction by simply being a model as a successful state and society.
This was never going to happen. You're ignoring a lot of context like an entire 19th century worth of unanswered questions regarding the German Empire/Confederation and Nordicist autism. The plain and simple answer is that Germany was a mistake

>>17797429
I blame Napoleon for dissolving the HRE.
Europe was geopolitically stable until this guy showed up.

Would have been kino if the HRE existed in 2025.

>>17796371 (OP)
https://akarlin.com/short-history-of-20th-century/

>Probability: I think the objective chances of German victory in 1941-42 were high. They made three critical meta-mistakes:
>(1) Declaring war on the United States.
>In that case, there be no American Lend-Lease, which was critical for making up deficiencies in Soviet production (e.g. copper wire, aviation gasoline). There would also be no “second front” in the form of the bombing campaign, which put a crimp on German production when they did start to ramp it up. The Soviets would have never enjoyed air superiority, and the resources invested into AA defense would have gone into more tanks and artillery.
>(2) Treating the peoples of the occupied territories and POWs extremely harshly.
>They could have always just promised them everything, then drawn out the daggers once the USSR was definitively defeated. I guess it doesn’t pay to be prematurely nasty.
>(3) Waiting too long to go into full economic mobilization.
>German military production peaked in 1944, when the air campaign was at its peak and the Allied armies were already closing in.

>>17797448
>(1) Declaring war on the United States.
>In that case, there be no American Lend-Lease,

Stopped reading there.
Lend-Lease to the USSR began before Germany declared war on USA, and it had begun to the British even longer before then.

Not gonna read the rest because when you get such basic fact wrong, I know the rest is just gonna be complete normie horseshit arguments.

>>17797441
>Europe was geopolitically stable until this guy showed up.
Europe just had the Seven Years War and the American Revolution which was why France was bankrupt. Europe was always at war for most of its history.

>>17797460
I said it more as a meme.

>>17796371 (OP)
yugoslav coup + mou invading greece

>>17796864
The majority of free Ukrainians were pro German.
thousands of Slavs and thousands of Balts died under arms for a free Europe.

>>17796371 (OP)
They should've just fished.

>>17796864
Ukrainians and Balts collaborated with the Einsatzgruppen, retard.

>>17796371 (OP)
>In retrospect, where did it go wrong for the Germans?
When they decided to pursue the Danzig issue, instead of schifting towards an alliance with Poland against the USSR.

In that scenario:
>the eastern front starts much closer to Moscow
>Poland helps militarly, instead of being an enemy
>the UK doesn't have a Casus Belli to declare war onto Germany
>Japan sticks to the comintern pact, because Ribbentrop-Molotov isn't signed
>Germany, Poland and Japan gang up on the Soviets
>the USSR loses
>further developments are anyone's guess, but Germany's situation is definitely MUCH better

In other words - real history is what you get when your leader is a passionate nationalist, instead of a calculating, pragmatic politician.

1) Prioritizing the USSR over dismantling the british empire through north africa, middle east and air warfare
2) Declaring war on the US
-
It could have still been saved if they had centered all their forces on moscow and had done so earlier.

Even without that there were minor chances but by 1942 Hitler led the Wehrmacht into wrong decision after wrong decision, and that was that.

>>17797953
Poland turned down joining the anti-comintern pact, tho that offer came together with the demand for Danzig.
Regardless, we dont know how Britain and France would have reacted on an invasion of the USSR.

It's an intereting view though, and it's the main point that AJP Taylor argues in his thesis, that ww2 as we know it wasnt planned by Germany but rather reactionary.
It kinda puts the whole "lebensraum" thing upside down because if Poland aligns with Germany (as Hitler originally intended), then it becomes difficult to invade the USSR for the sake of expanding Germany.

I think Hitler was serious about destroying the USSR, and it wasnt just solely because muh communism (tho that was a major factor) but for the same reason Imperial Germany wanted to do it in the 1912 meeting; Russia will always overhelming Germany once it has been allowed to modernized and industrialized. In the Best-Litovsk treaty 1918, the land Russia ceded wasnt ceded to Germany, it was simply surrendered from the Russian state. It could belong to anyone but not to Russia.
Perhaps in a Germany + Poland + Axis victory over the Soviet state, it would simply be broken up into smaller staters that would be German protectorates; somewhat politically independent, but still subservient to Berlin, an inverse Warsaw pact. This would still give Germany the access to grain and oil.

Sometimes I get the feeling that the "Lebensraum" as we're being told (i.e German border going to Iran) is more of a distorted myth of what Hitler actually intended.

not "the cause" but not being pragmatic early in the war certainly didn't help. why starve eastern europeans who welcomed you with open arms as liberators instead of using them as cannon fodder. speer tried to make the best out of it but one man can only do so much

>>17797982
>Declaring war on the US
the US was far from neutral, attacking U-boats and actively aiding the UK. they were already de facto at war so the war declaration was only a formality

>>17798084
>why starve eastern europeans who welcomed you with open arms as liberators
That's just another myth. There was distrust and passive resistance from the start.

>>17797982
1) Prioritizing the USSR over dismantling the british empire through north africa, middle east and air warfare
Fighting in North Africa was one of the biggest mistakes of the war. If you want Hitler to have a chance, then North Africa should be abandoned, not doubled down on. Germany was never going to win that front for fundemental reasons that were beyond their control

>2) Declaring war on the US
Sure, but USA was already supplying the USSR and UK through Lend-Lease with all the material they needed to win. The whole motivation for the declaration of war was to prevent US shipping in the Atlantic.
By the time USA entered the European theater, the war was essentially irreversible, tho Hitler underestimated US speed to enter the European/NA theater.

>>17798084
>why starve eastern europeans

The hunger plan was equally motivated by the fact that Germany was being starved by the British blockade. Germany could avoid starvation through its trade with the USSR, but obviously that trade ended with Barbarossa, and the Ukraine grainfields had been scorched by the retreating Soviets when Germany captured them. The British blockade was now in full effect and would have the same consequences as 1917.

The Hunger Plan was essentially to funnel food from occupied eastern Europe to feed Germany.
Sounds aweful, but that's exactly what Britain did as well which led to the Bengal famine that killed millions of people; food in India was prioritized to England to avoid starvation there.
Post-war propaganda has then after swept this fact under the rug.

>>17798076
>Sometimes I get the feeling that the "Lebensraum" as we're being told (i.e German border going to Iran) is more of a distorted myth of what Hitler actually intended.

Welcome to the redpill, anon. Here's a good material on the matter:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qX8USPwWi1Q

And about the Soviet Union - they were gathering massive amounts of troops at the border to invade Europe. Barbarossa was a response to it, a gigantic preemptive strike.

>>17797787
>>17797873
Let’s not romanticize this as a crusade for a “free Europe.” Most were driven by survival, local nationalism, or anti-communism, not some pan-European ideal. The Nazis exploited these sentiments while offering zero real autonomy. Ukraine and the Baltics were to be colonial fiefs under the Generalplan Ost, not free states.

Nazi ideology made genuine alliances impossible. The Einsatzgruppen and brutal occupation policies (like starving Kyiv and razing villages) turned initial Ukrainian goodwill into resistance by 1942. Partisan groups like the UPA ended up fighting both Germans and Soviets. If the Germans had played smarter, like promising actual independence, they might’ve secured more loyalty. Instead, they shot themselves in the foot.

What’s your angle on why these collaborations didn’t tip the scales for Germany?

>>17796371 (OP)
>where did it go wrong for the Germans?
Interregnum in 1250.
Luther was the final straw.
It was over before it even started.

>>17796376
That's where it went right. Domestically speaking.

>>17796476
Germany did better over the channel and over France, just not over British borders. The real German air losses were inflicted by the USSR.

>>17797873
This. Some 50k Slavs died at Stalingrad alone. 30k cossacks had their own SS corp.

>>17796371 (OP)
There wasn’t one turning point. They shouldn’t have invaded Poland, they shouldn’t have attacked the Soviet Union, they shouldn’t have declared war on America. When the Germans went East many of the populations they planned to and did subjugate initially treated them as liberators. If they’d have had an agreement with Poland even if not friendly, waited for the Soviets to attack, then helped the Polish who they would have ideally helped industrialize and militarize, encourage as many European powers as possible to fight, treated the Eastern populations humanely, never declared war on America, made it an ideological battle against Bolshevism and actually embraced pan-European sentiment instead of just using it for propaganda and SS recruitment, they could’ve been in a much greater position and perhaps the world would be much more open to them demanding more territorial concessions from Poland. The Danzig corridor wasn’t all as important as they acted like it was. If they’d helped Poland and fucked the commies they could’ve gotten an agreement that at least guaranteed free travel to and from East Prussia and gotten Versailles conditions revoked post-war, and if France and Britain were still retarded enough to declare war despite Germany not attacking Poland in this timeline, they could demand Alsace back and retake Namibia, their only worthwhile colony from Britain, and the Americans wouldn’t have been anywhere near as helpful to the Allies, if not actively supplying the (relatively moderate compared to our timeline) Germans. The unification of Germany and Austria, as well as the seizure of the Sudetenland were huge victories they should’ve been content with. German’s domination of the East could’ve been economic and political instead of conducting an anti-white genocide based in schizophrenic incoherent racial theories