(1) The MOST fundermental: Hitler's Crazy decision to declare war on America, the nincompoop thought that America would concentrate on revenge against Japan. If that was so there was NO need to get invoved at all, there was absolutely no reason to be allied with Japan - there were no common interests with Japan - in fact Germany should have stayed neutral until Pearl Harbour, then DECLARED WAR ON JAPAN and promise America all the help it can give in face of this attack on a fellow Aryan nation! That would have spiked Roosevelt and his war mongers.
(2) Germany should not have become bogged down in trying to take major Russian cities, they should have by passed them relying on the inability of the Russkies to think and organize fast.The German Army was overwelmingly sucessful where it was constantly on the move entraping vast bodies of the Red Army. Where it was stupid enough to get involved in predictable frontal attacks then Russian superior numbers told.
(3) Germany should have been on a war footing in 1941, In particular: the inferior MkIV should have been replaced by the Panther in 1942, a four engined bomber should have been developed to bomb to smithereenes the Urals industrial complex and the rail lines taking munitions to the Front 1000 miles away, a fighter/bomber like the typhoon sould have been developed to take out massed tank assaults.

That will do for now.....

Originally Posted by Der Alte

If we are to describe his role in Germany's history it would be a very long post.

Bismarck was the driving force in uniting the 40+ states on German soil into the German Empire in 1870. He furthermore through his very sophisticated political work of alliances etc. gave Europe a period of peace between 1871 and 1914. The men after him, in particular Emperor Wilhelm II, undid piece by piece Bismarck's achievements in foreign politics; they were not able to keep up his intricate peace work and drove Germany and Europe into WW1.

I completely agree I was lucky enough to have a high school history teacher that discussed Bismarck in depth rather than just dates and places which opened up a life long interest in the man.

Originally Posted by Jonny Reb

(1) The MOST fundermental: Hitler's Crazy decision to declare war on America, the nincompoop thought that America would concentrate on revenge against Japan. If that was so there was NO need to get invoved at all, there was absolutely no reason to be allied with Japan - there were no common interests with Japan - in fact Germany should have stayed neutral until Pearl Harbour, then DECLARED WAR ON JAPAN and promise America all the help it can give in face of this attack on a fellow Aryan nation! That would have spiked Roosevelt and his war mongers.
(2) Germany should not have become bogged down in trying to take major Russian cities, they should have by passed them relying on the inability of the Russkies to think and organize fast.The German Army was overwelmingly sucessful where it was constantly on the move entraping vast bodies of the Red Army. Where it was stupid enough to get involved in predictable frontal attacks then Russian superior numbers told.
(3) Germany should have been on a war footing in 1941, In particular: the inferior MkIV should have been replaced by the Panther in 1942, a four engined bomber should have been developed to bomb to smithereenes the Urals industrial complex and the rail lines taking munitions to the Front 1000 miles away, a fighter/bomber like the typhoon sould have been developed to take out massed tank assaults.

That will do for now.....

Hitler declared war on Japan because of the pact he had with Japan, just like Britain declared war on Germany because of a pact it had with Poland.

Germany could not have invaded Britain (if for some reason it wnted to ) - there was no Geman Navy to speak of. Two 11" battle cruisers and an odd 'pocket battleship' ( which cold be ripped apart by a cruiser's 6" against twelve 15" and two 16". PLus it did not have the merchant fleet to supply the army.

One of the main reasons was the breaking of the Enigma codes at Bletchley Park.

Hitler formed that crazy stupid alliance with Japan because he wanted to get back at Britain for not grasping the reality of the situation victory - in Europe 1945 loss of Empire in 1948 onwards.
Kaiser Bill was not as bad as portrayed: he had to contend with the determination of France to seize the German speaking provences of Alsace, Loraine and Russia to mount a joint attack to seize German speaking city of Koenigsburg ( and look where they are now ) plus the brain dead, francophile British upper crust.

The last post is only a lot of strange and suspicious things :
Germany lost WWII because its opponents were stronger:with or without Hitler,Germany would have lost .
The DOW to the US was not important,unless there is a proof that without this DOW,the US would have remained neutral .
Enigma,the Lötzen decision,Dunkirk,etc,etc,are not the cause of the German defeat.

Originally Posted by lljadw

The last post is only a lot of strange and suspicious things :
Germany lost WWII because its opponents were stronger:with or without Hitler,Germany would have lost .
The DOW to the US was not important,unless there is a proof that without this DOW,the US would have remained neutral .
Enigma,the Lötzen decision,Dunkirk,etc,etc,are not the cause of the German defeat.

Sorry mate I disagree regarding your comment about Enigma, breaking of codes is absolutely vital in war time. Its because the US broke the Japanese JN25 code that they were able to ambush and destroyed the Japanese carrier fleet at the Battle of Midway.

Japan’s navy never recovered from its mauling at Midway and it was on the defensive after this battle all thanks to code breaking.


By how much did Ultra intelligence, gained from reading Enigma ciphers, shorten the war? Harry Hinsley, based at Bletchley during the war, suggests it was a significant asset. If it did not keep Rommel out of Egypt in 1941, it certainly did so the following year, by preventing him exploiting his victory at Gazala.

As General Alexander put it, 'The knowledge not only of the enemy's precise strength and disposition, but also how, when and where he intends to carry out his operations brought a new dimension to the prosecution of the war.'

The loss of Egypt in 1942 would have set back the re-conquest of North Africa and upset the timetable for the invasion of France. According to Hinsley, Overlord would probably have been deferred until 1946.

But by then the Germans might have hit back with V-weapons and worse. Enigma successes always needed complementing with other intelligence material, but the fact that the Allies kept Enigma secret until 1974 shows how much it meant to them.

Over the intervening decades it has been discovered that throughout the war the intelligence services of the Western powers (particularly the British) intercepted, broke, and read significant portions of the German military's top-secret message traffic. That cryptographic intelligence, disseminated to Allied commanders under the code name Ultra, played a significant role in the effort to defeat the Germans and achieve an Allied victory.

The Ultra information dissemination process lay outside normal intelligence channels and intelligence officers would not be aware of the existence of Ultra and would therefore not know the duties of the Ultra liaison officers. Those officers, in turn, would forward Ultra intelligence only to the commanders. The system seems to have worked, for the Germans never caught on to how extensively their ciphers had been compromised. Unfortunately, there were drawbacks. Intelligence is used only if it reaches those who understand its significance.

It is, however, difficult to assess Ultra's full impact on the conflict. At times, particularly early in the war, no matter how much Ultra informed the British of German intentions, the Wehrmacht's overwhelming superiority made successful use of the information virtually impossible. In war, so many factors other than good intelligence impinge on operations that it is difficult to single out any one battle or period in which Ultra alone was of decisive import. Yet there was least one instance in which decrypted German codes did play a decisive role.

The intercepts and decrypts in the summers of 1941 and 1942 gave the British government, and Churchill in particular, an accurate picture of Erwin Rommel's tank strength. That information indicated that the British army had considerable superiority in numbers in the North African theater against the Afrika Korps. These quantitative returns could not indicate, however, such factors as the technological superiority of German tanks and particularly the qualitative edge in doctrine and training that the Germans enjoyed. The intercepts, however, explain why Churchill kept consistent pressure on British Eighth Army commanders to attack the Afrika Korps.

We can learn much from the Germans' high level of competence in the tactical and operational fields. Equally, we have much to learn from their failures in other areas. Above all, the German defeat in World War II suggests that to underestimate the capabilities and intelligence of one's enemies is to suffer dangerous and damaging consequences to one's own forces.

Originally Posted by Eileen36

Having a megalomaniac making strategic combat decisions didn't help much either.

That's what the defeated German generals were claiming after the war,as an excuse for their defeat .
The history of the war in the east was written,exceptionally,by the losers=by Halder and the Historical Division