Adolf Hitler Mistakes

Ok first of all what is the sense of this thread? Hitler would have lost anyway because he would have NEVER been able to avoid an atom bomb drop by USA on germany... IN CASE he would have been about to win the war in Europe.

Yes, maybe he would have won the Europe war if he would have finished Great Britain in 1940 and delayed the war with Soviet Union as long as possible.. in the end, this discusion is still pointless

Ok first of all what is the sense of this thread? Hitler would have lost anyway because he would have NEVER been able to avoid an atom bomb drop by USA on germany... IN CASE he would have been about to win the war in Europe.

Yes, maybe he would have won the Europe war if he would have finished Great Britain in 1940 and delayed the war with Soviet Union as long as possible.. in the end, this discusion is still pointless

The objective here is trying to analyse what hitler could have done differently to change the course of the war . I think the last 2 replys answers that question .

There are countless mistakes like not getting Ukraine(who hated and were ready to fight the Soviets) on side, due to Nazi ideology which classed them as slavs meaning they were not fit as allies.

Also Hitler making numerous strategic errors and not letting his generals take complete control of fighting during the war was a huge blunder.

Stalin recognised just before the battle of Moscow that he was not fit to make military decisions (massive losses of early operation Barbarossa) and that he should let his generals take charge, Hitler should have done the same. After all Hitler had only reached the rank of Corporal in WW1 but in WW2 he acted like he was an experienced field marshal.

In 1941 and 1942 soviet forces were commanded by old school generals like Voroshilov, Timoshenko and Budeny. They made a huge amount of military mistakes therefor huge losses. They couldnt understand the main principles of new war. In 1943 and so on, stalin change them with Shukov, Vasilevsky and others. Stalin always let to do generals thier job. But they fought in civil war and didnt want to learn new principles of war. Stalin understood it.

On a serious note, Hitler should never have started the war with Russia when the UK was at his back. It gave the US a landing and preparation place to invade the mainland. If the US couldn't land troops in Europe it probably would focused its efforts in the East.

Taking out the UK would also have stopped the strategic bombing of German industry and the lend-lease to Russia (or at least made it easier to attack the supply coming form the US).

After that the same old Hitler should have let his generals fight the war and, miss-allocation of resources and of command etc etc.

I don't think he could have taken the UK really. The British decisively won the Battle of Britain, and they had a way larger navy than the Nazi's did.

UK is covered from all sides by ocean, and then even if they made it inland. When was the last successful invasion of the UK island? 1032? Something like that.

Some country's, purely due to geography, are a lot easier to invade and take over than others. I would argue that both Russia (due to it's sheer size, and inhospitable weather patterns) and UK, were countries that were damn near impossible to invade, successfully anyways.

I don't think he could have taken the UK really. The British decisively won the Battle of Britain, and they had a way larger navy than the Nazi's did.

UK is covered from all sides by ocean, and then even if they made it inland. When was the last successful invasion of the UK island? 1032? Something like that.

Some country's, purely due to geography, are a lot easier to invade and take over than others. I would argue that both Russia (due to it's sheer size, and inhospitable weather patterns) and UK, were countries that were damn near impossible to invade, successfully anyways.

You are pretty on point. There was simply NO WAY Germany could invade the UK. FIrst of all, they couldn't win the Battle of Britain regardless of their tactics. The British were outproducing the Germans in aircraft. Second, the Germans had no amphibious landing doctrine or experience. Amphibious landings are complicated. The British and Americans had been practicing them and refining them for decades prior even to WW2 and they still knew they weren't ready to invade until a few years of preparation had been made.

And finally there is the Royal Navy. At the time of Operation Sea Lion the KriegsMarine had 3 cruisers and a handful of destroyers. The British, between the HOme Fleet and the Med. Fleet had that many capital ships alone, not to mention a couple of aircraft carriers, a dozen cruisers and a couple dozen destroyers. Do you know what a destroyer alone can do to a flotilla of river barges pulled by river tugs moving at 5 knots in the English Channel? (because that was the composition of the force the Germans were going to use.)

You are pretty on point. There was simply NO WAY Germany could invade the UK. FIrst of all, they couldn't win the Battle of Britain regardless of their tactics. The British were outproducing the Germans in aircraft. Second, the Germans had no amphibious landing doctrine or experience. Amphibious landings are complicated. The British and Americans had been practicing them and refining them for decades prior even to WW2 and they still knew they weren't ready to invade until a few years of preparation had been made.

And finally there is the Royal Navy. At the time of Operation Sea Lion the KriegsMarine had 3 cruisers and a handful of destroyers. The British, between the HOme Fleet and the Med. Fleet had that many capital ships alone, not to mention a couple of aircraft carriers, a dozen cruisers and a couple dozen destroyers. Do you know what a destroyer alone can do to a flotilla of river barges pulled by river tugs moving at 5 knots in the English Channel? (because that was the composition of the force the Germans were going to use.)

I visited the Imperial War Museum in the UK< and they had a whole exhibit for just the Battle of Britain alone.

And IIRC, this was over 20 years ago, the BF109, was largely a "defensive" role fighter, it was never meant for long flight operations or crossing vast amounts of territory before it got to it's destination, by the time it flew from Normandy France, to London, they only had 15 minutes of spare fuel left over, before they immediately had to turn back.

If the Germans were going to have a shred of HOPE of winning the Battle of Britain, my best guess, they needed the FW190 to already be their main fighter aircraft, because again, IIRC, they had a much longer range than the BF109.

Spitfire and Hurricane on the other hand, every base was local, and didn't have to cross the English channel before it could start fighting, they could keep those planes in the air nearly non-stop, even if at a numerical disadvantage to the Luftwaffe's airforce, they could get the men and material where it needed to go practically immediately by WWII standards, compared to the brief amount of combat a BF109 was allowed before being forced to turn back.

And the German Fighter-Bombers of the era, mandated that they had fighter-aircraft support, everything was extremely vulnerable to Spitfires/Hurricanes without fighter aircraft escorting them.

I don't think he could have taken the UK really. The British decisively won the Battle of Britain, and they had a way larger navy than the Nazi's did.

UK is covered from all sides by ocean, and then even if they made it inland. When was the last successful invasion of the UK island? 1032? Something like that.

Some country's, purely due to geography, are a lot easier to invade and take over than others. I would argue that both Russia (due to it's sheer size, and inhospitable weather patterns) and UK, were countries that were damn near impossible to invade, successfully anyways.

Necromancy!

Anyway, the last successful invasion of the U.K.was actually in 1688 by the Dutch, but they like to pretend that that one doesn't count. (TBF, William III had a lot of popular support in England, and almost all of the violence was in Scotland and Ireland.)

That kind of supports your point though--the Dutch had a great navy and they used it. Absent that it's hard to see how the U.K. falls. Even if Hitler managed to avoid the mistakes of Barbarossa, it seems likely that the U.K. would just dust off the old anti-Napoleon playbook. They'd block him off from access to the sea, and pick at the edges of his empire by supplying rebels in the various conquered states until something stuck.

Hitler this, Hitler that, Hitler Hitler Hitler...

The only reason ww2 escalated to the point it did in Europe was because Germany and especially hitler said fuck you international banking world and created their own money that didn't need backing by the international debt promotional baking system and it overlords. Thus the banking world called in its debt horses to cut out the rotten apple.

If any of you even listen to his speeches, he talks about it quite frequently, especially England and it's 'wealth' of whom only a small portion of the people profited. I am not saying the man was perfect, but he was spot on.

As for his biggest mistake, well it was in defying the banking world on his own in Europe. Many people here talk about Barbarossa as his biggest failure, but anyone with a clear mind can see that this was a hastily build up invasion that was acted out preemptively. Yes any army make plans for any possible foe, but Barbarossa was flawed and it wouldn't have been so if it had been planned for years.

Think about it. We all hear in our history books that the Nazi beast attacked a peaceful and non aggressive nation in the east, known as the Soviet Union. Peaceful and non aggressive? Stalin waged multiple wars of conquest in the 1930:

1. Stalin´s war against Finland in 1939. This was an expansive campaign, but it failed horribly.

2. Stalin´s war against Poland in 1939. This was an expansive campaign, but it did succeed. Ironically enough the United Kingdom and France declared war on Germany, but not to the Soviet Union who attacked two weeks later.

Now perhaps Stalin was peaceful after his most recent wars and conquest, fair enough we could argue for that. But if you were peaceful and not planning a war, then why on earth did we have the following situation in the Soviet Union:

The positioning of the Red Army along the Soviet frontier in 1940 and early 1941 where no decisive or effective defensive infrastructure could be found. If the country was peaceful and defensive, it would make no sense to put almost all of your frontline troops in such a position from where you can´t effectively defend your country. Stalin was clearly no idiot, he knew this. Once the fighting slowed down in 1941 and the Wehrmacht reached the Stalin line, we could see the effectiveness of a prepared defensive line, it slowed the Wehrmacht down for weeks. No wonder the Russian front collapsed almost instantly at the beginning of Operation Barbarossa, there was no defensive line or organization, since the Red army got caught with their lederhosen down whilst preparing their own offensive.

Their own offensive, huh? Oh yes my friends, Stalin was planning his own offensive in Europe in the very same year as Hitler acted towards Russia, and it was the very reason Hitler acted towards Russia. What?! No way!! Well Stalin would like to tell you otherwise.

On May 5th, 1941, just seven weeks before the German attack, Stalin delivered another important speech, this one at a ceremonial banquet in the Kremlin to graduates of the Frunze Military Academy. Also attending were the members of Stalin's "inner circle," including Molotov and Beria.

On May 5, Stalin and assorted Soviet dignitaries attended commencement at the Frunze Military Academy in Moscow. During the following banquet, he proposed several toasts and talked volubly. An abridged transcript of Stalin's remarks that day, from Soviet archives, was ultimately published by the Russian historian Lev Besyemski in the March 1992 issue of the periodical Osteuropa.

Stalin lauded the modernization of the Red Army. He rebuffed Gen. Michail Chosin, the director of the Frunze academy, for proposing a toast to the USSR's peaceful foreign policy. The dictator substituted these words:

Now that we have become strong, one must go from defense over to the attack. To accomplish the defense of our country we are obliged to take the offensive.... We must reform our instruction, our propaganda, agitation, our press to pervade an attack spirit. The Red Army is a modern army, and a modern army is an offensive army. (ibid., p. 276) (Suvorov, Viktor, "Who Was Planning to Attack Whom in June 1941, Hitler or Stalin?)

No way! There would have been proof, attack plans and so forth! Well there were and still are! Not only was the attack set in 1941, but the attack plans have been uncovered by some Russian Historians, who of course were threatened with multiple death penalties and all fled to Britain or the US. The best one to date has to be that of Viktor Suvorov. In his book he states the following about the massed Soviet armies on it's Western borders:

"The basis of Soviet strategy was the "operation in depth" theory.... The shock army was to... deliver those strikes in depth. Set up purely to solve offensive tasks, these shock armies had... a considerable quantity of artillery and infantry whose purpose it was to break the enemy's defense, and one or two mechanized corps with 500 tanks each... On June 21, 1941, all the Soviet armies on the German and Romanian borders... were of shock army standard." (Suvorov, Viktor (1990) Icebreaker: Who Started the Second World War?)

There are even maps uncovered.

(Weeks, Albert L. (2002) Stalin’s Other War: Soviet Grand Strategy, 1939-1941. Rowman & Littlefield)

Lol bro, you have been smoking quite a bit. Have I now? Or have you forgotten that Stalin was a communist and wanted to move on with the revolution that Lenin preached himself? It is no secret that the communist revolution was planned. It only failed.

Have fun in the rabbit hole..

Well. To be honest i think there was no plan for a soviet invasion in 1941.
I think there were plans for an expansion in the future.
You dont build up an army with 10.000s of tanks and aircrafts to "defend" your homeland. However you wont slaughter down your army head officers and best trained soldiers when u are planing an invasion within the next years.

I can understand why a number of people are talking about pre-emptive attack. Both system would have ended in a war... but i cant see any soviet offensive plans or ideas for a war in 1941 or 1942...

Necromancy in the Library is fine, provided the subject stays on topic.

And with that, I would like to add my own words of caution to those who may think the outcome of non-invasion of UK was a done deal. To that extent, I would argue that the title of this thread is highly relevant: 'the Hitler factor'.

So could the Germans have done it differently? Counter-factually, I would argue that they could have done.I am basing this post on the "War Diaries 1939- 1945 Field Marshal Lord Alanbrooke" .

Alanbrooke was one of the two Corps commanders for the British Expeditionary Force in France/Belgium, which was forced to retreat to UK via Dunkirk in May 1940. Thereafter, he took over Southern Command on 26 June 1940, and was subsequently promoted to Commander in Chief Home Forces on 19 July 1940, before promotion in late 1941 as the Army representative on the Chiefs of Staff. The diaries are contemporaneously written, and are dry to read, unless you enjoy history.

It is worth remembering that Hitler apparently agreed to let his army regroup, as the British headed for Dunkirk. If Hitler had ordered his army to continue to press the attack, it is questionable as to how many of the Allied troops could have escaped. As it was, a large proportion did escape, leaving behind their heavy equipment. As you know, many were evacuated on small boats, including fishing boats and cabin cruisers. That was the Navy's reserve...and it was a beaten army.

The unwounded survivors were placed into trains which headed off into the UK countryside, where they stayed on trains, while the army decided where they could be reformed. The whole UK army had been shaken up by the disorganised retreat and most men were stragglers, out of contact with their units, many without any equipment worth the name.

Immediately after Dunkirk, Alanbrooke was ordered to return to France on 12 June 1940 to Cherbourg/Le Mans, to see if the UK could restart its effort further West where a further 100,000 UK/Canadian troops were still stationed. But he quickly concluded that this would be a waste of effort, so ordered their retreat also. He boarded a trawler on 17 June to leave France again.

These are some of Alanbrooke's notes after that. He wrote almost daily, so I have cut back to keep this post as short as possible :

"26 June 1940

...I spent the rest of the day...taking over Southern Command.The main impression I had was that the Command had a long way to be put on a war footing and that a peace time atmosphere was still prevailing...

29 June 1940

In the morning visited the Australian contingent...It will take at least a month before any of them are ready for any active operation. In the afternoon, attended a conference on....Local Defence Volunteers...Why do we in this country turn to all the old men when we require a new volunteer force? Old men spell delay and chaos!...

30 June 1940

..,what I wanted for the defence of Southern Command namely another Corps HQ, another Div, some armoured units and a call on bomber squadrons.Some of these things I may get...I rubbed into him the nakedness of this command when taken in relation to the new situation in Western France [German occupation: my brackets]...

01 July 1940

...The more I see of conditions at home,the more bewildered I am as to what has been going on in this country since the war started.It is now 10 months and yet the shortage of trained men and of equipment is appalling!! At present I fail to see how we can make this country safe against attack [My italics]

Two parachutists reported. One captured was a British prisoner paid 500 pounds for the job.

02 July 1940

....The more I see the nakedness of our defences the more appalled I am! Untrained men, no arms, no transport, and no equipment. And yet there are masses of men in uniforms in this country but they are mostly untrained, why I cannot think after 10 months of war. The ghastly part of it is that I feel certain that we can only have a few more weeks left before the Boche attacks.

08 July 1940

Visited Oxford to see my South Midland area...A good show but not enough troops.

10 July 1940

...moved to Totnes...and looked at beach defence, much more work and drive required...From what I have seen I am not happy at the state of the defences in these parts, people have not yet realized the danger of attack.

11 July 1940

...Prior, as as Plymouth sub-area commander does not seem what is wanted and his plans of defence are very sketchy. Green I am afraid must go. He has not got the required qualities...

12 July 1940

This was supposed to be the probable day of invasion!...asking for Green to be relieved of the command of the South Western Area.He is too old and lacking in drive ever to make a job of the defence of Devon and Cornwall.

13 July 1940

...No further signs of impending attack. However I feel that I require a great deal more time to complete defensive arrangements within the Command. There is a mass of work to do and many officers to be replaced.

15 July 1940

Spent a long day going around beach defences from Bognor Regis to West Wittering. A lot of work still requires to be done, and we are painfully thin on the ground...

18 July 1940

I spent the day with 50th Div going round beaches from Lulworth Cove, round Swanage, Sandbank, Bournemouth upp tyo the mouth of the Soent. All work going well, but beaches very lightly held....

22 July 1940

....To my mind our defence should be of a far more mobile and offensive nature. I visualized a light defence along the beaches, to hamper and delay landings to the maximum,and in the rear highly mobile forces trained to immediate aggressive action intended to concentrate and attack any landings before they had time to become too well established. I was also relying on heavy air attacks on the point of landing, and had every intention of using sprayed mustard gas on the beaches...

26 July 1940

...Chiefs of Staff meeting. main subject of discussion was the priority of use of fighters in the event of invasion. I came away feeling less confident as to our powers of meeting an invasion. The attitude of the Naval Command brought out very clearly the fact that the navy now realizes fully that its position has now been undermined by the advent of aircraft. Sea supremacy is no longer what it was, and in the face of strong bomber forces can no longer ensure the safety of this island against invasion.This throws a much heavier task on the army.

27 July 1940

...went to visit the 46th Division....Found it in a lamentably backward state of training, barely fit to do platoon training and deficient of officers...

29 July 1940

.....There was, however,one point above all others which constituted a grave danger in the defens8ive organisation of this country, there was no form of combined command over the three services.And yet their roles were ultimately locked together. Who was deciding the claims between the employment of destroyers against hostile landing craft, as opposed to anti-submarine protection of the Western Approaches? Whp would decide between conflicting calls of the Army for bombers to attack beaches, as opposed to Navy wanting them for attacks on hostile fleets?...It was a highly dangerous organization: had an invasion developed I fear that Churchill would have attempted as Defence Minister tp coordinate the actions of these various commands. This would have been wrong and highly dangerous, with his impulsive nature and tendency to arrive at decisions though a process of intuition, as opposed to 'logical' approach. Heaven knows where he might have led us! "

Well. To be honest i think there was no plan for a soviet invasion in 1941.
I think there were plans for an expansion in the future.
You dont build up an army with 10.000s of tanks and aircrafts to "defend" your homeland. However you wont slaughter down your army head officers and best trained soldiers when u are planing an invasion within the next years.

I can understand why a number of people are talking about pre-emptive attack. Both system would have ended in a war... but i cant see any soviet offensive plans or ideas for a war in 1941 or 1942...

It was called operation Thunder and was scheduled in the late summer of 1941. I have also always found Stalin's purge strange. But when I think of it, it could have well been the people opposing an invasion of Europe by the Soviet Union.

the big mistake was not mass producing u boats before the death charges where invented. it would have crippled all supply to europe and north africa hence victory

On a serious note, Hitler should never have started the war with Russia when the UK was at his back. It gave the US a landing and preparation place to invade the mainland. If the US couldn't land troops in Europe it probably would focused its efforts in the East.

Taking out the UK would also have stopped the strategic bombing of German industry and the lend-lease to Russia (or at least made it easier to attack the supply coming form the US).

After that the same old Hitler should have let his generals fight the war and, miss-allocation of resources and of command etc etc.

- Wrong. If Hitler had invaded Britain, Europe would have been lost to the CCCP, which were readying
for a mass invasion of Europe. Tons of Tanks, tons of planes, tons of supplies. Tons of PARATROOPERS!!!.
(with German maps and cards saying surrender! in German).
- Hitler's assault caught the Soviets by surprise, with all their staff in Moscow.
- Hitler - might - have won, but he was slowed down mainly by Mossolini who decided to attack Greece,
a Neutral country. This made Greece turn to the allies for help, welcoming a torrent of british into
Greece. Mossolini got beat by Greece, hitler squashed it in a month.

... by then, it was too late. Never again would his tanks see the outline of Moscow.
(which was undefended when he first set sight on it).

Hitler's worse mistake was using the M262 as a bomber
- Apparently, that was influenced by the british using the Mosquito
as a rabid fighter-bomber. Hitler decided he wanted the M262 to be that.

The Germans didn't need to occupy and control the UK like they had done with the rest of Europe. They only needed to destroy the UK ability to fight effectively. Destroy the ports and the air fields and the factory's that produce weapons. Maintain enough men in the UK to go and smash any attempt at making the UK fighting fit again.

The Germans originally targeted the RAF itself not the cities. They had the RAF on its knees when they changed targets and allowed the RAF to get itself together again. With air superiority the German's weak navy wouldn't have been that big an issue.

Hitler's worse mistake was using the M262 as a bomber
- Apparently, that was influenced by the british using the Mosquito
as a rabid fighter-bomber. Hitler decided he wanted the M262 to be that.

Lol.
And that is an old myth ^^
All german fighters had to be able to drop bombs. So the Me 262 was able to do this from the beginning.
It was more or less a problem of the new technology, the competition between the Fighter forces and the commanders of the western air force aka Luftflotte 3(Gen Galland vs GenMaj Peltz) and the non existing defense tactics of the Luftwaffe...

- Wrong. If Hitler had invaded Britain, Europe would have been lost to the CCCP, which were readying
for a mass invasion of Europe. Tons of Tanks, tons of planes, tons of supplies. Tons of PARATROOPERS!!!.
(with German maps and cards saying surrender! in German).
- Hitler's assault caught the Soviets by surprise, with all their staff in Moscow.
- Hitler - might - have won, but he was slMossolini who decidedowed down mainly by to attack Greece,
a Neutral country. This made Greece turn to the allies for help, welcoming a torrent of british into
Greece. Mossolini got beat by Greece, hitler squashed it in a month.

... by then, it was too late. Never again would his tanks see the outline of Moscow.
(which was undefended when he first set sight on it).

It is so nice to someone catch on to reality.

Hitler's worse mistake was using the M262 as a bomber
- Apparently, that was influenced by the british using the Mosquito
as a rabid fighter-bomber. Hitler decided he wanted the M262 to be that.

People miss a huge point regarding Hitler. He had a political genius when it came to military matters. By the time of Barbarossa he had "recaptured" the Sudetenland, "conquered" Austria and Czechoslovakia, and defeated the Poles, Dutch, Norwegians and the French in relatively no time. The French! At that time in living memory the Germans had just failed in a 4 year struggle to do that and here it was done in weeks. Why shouldn't they be able to defeat the Russians? The Russians had always been the weaker of Germany's opponents, and were particularly weak at the time of Barbarossa.

I don't say this as a fan of Hitler. But people should not sell him short as a strategist even if he was not a good tactician nor the best choice for choosing weapon systems.

Remember, today we blame Hitler because the generals who wrote their memoirs (usually to their own benefit) blamed Hitler while too often not giving him credit for the things he did accomplish. And they too seldom take blame for tht hings that were their fault.

The Germans concentrate on tactical arts. The US on logistical arts. Each does so as a consequence of their respective histories. The Germans look to Frederik the Great and his accomplishments while in the US there was the combination of making West Point in part an engineering/logistical school both to help justify its existence prior to the Mexican and Civil wars, and to take into account the stupendous distances and size of the US.

Today we think maybe had the Germans captured all of Moscow perhaps they might have defeated the USSR. But they didn't know that then and we still don't know it today. It was also probably impossible regardless of any tactical changes regarding Barbarossa. After all, they lost even though everything essentially went according to plane. They made the inroads they expected and defeated the western armies to the degree they expected, if not more so. They accomplished Hitlers "kicking in the door". But the whole house didn't come down.

why hitler didnt stick with france , poland , balkans , greece and norway ?

is this living space not enough for germans ?

why going for an all out war with stalin ?

if he sticked just to defend this borders he would be all right , maybe , depending on the usa and uk politics would do towards his expansion .