You know how the German Empire fought against a global coalition and lost in WW1?
The Nazis decided, with full benefit of hindsight, to do it all over again.
Against almost the exact same coalition too.
Not pictured, the US on Allied side. Germany declared war on THEM this time. đ
Probably should’ve read some books instead of burning them.
âGermany was outnumbered, outproduced, and outfought? Jewish lies! Into the fires!â
According to the book Interrogations: the Nazi Elite in Allied Hands, 1945, by Richard Overy, Hitler’s foreign minister Joachim von Ribbentrop listed three main reasons for Germany’s defeat in WW2:
- Unexpectedly stubborn resistance from the Soviet Union.
- The large-scale supply of arms and equipment from the US to the Soviet Union under the lend-lease agreement.
- The success of the Western Allies in the struggle for air supremacy.
In other words, Germany showed up unprepared for a war against the enemy that combined American industrial might with the strategic depth and sheer human resources of the Soviet Union.
Below, the cover of a Soviet magazine for youth SmĂ©na from 1924. The picture shows a futuristic armored vehicle (a Saint-Chamond tank) in battle. The text under the Red Armyâs pentagram says âItâs a war on war!â. By the time the Nazis came to power, the USSR had already been preparing for WW2 for almost a decade. No wonder that the Soviet Union adopted the model of mobilization economy pioneered by Walther Rathenau and Erich Ludendorff for the new era of warfare so much better than the Germans themselves.
The Nazis were no match for this level of preparation. The robustness of the Soviet war machine overwhelmed them. Even after an almost total annihilation of the Red Army in 1941â42 in our western territories, it kept going and ground the dwindling German forces to bloody pulp.
The short answer, is it wasn’t actually prepared for a global conflict. Plans discovered by Allied forces after WW2, found that Hitler hadnt expected to go to war until 1945.
This meant it’s armed forces weren’t fully geared up, in equipment and manpower.
What’s often forgotten , the Germans even up until 1945 were still relying on horsepower to pull their artillery guns into battle. The Blitzkrieg in France saw the German Army employing around 250,000 horses and pack animals.
Also unlike in Britain and Russia, Hitler refused to employ women in factories and armament production. It wasn’t until Albert Speer took over as War Minister in 1943 , that the Third Reich got itself on a full war footing.
Hitler gambled that the German Armies could Blitzkrieg their way to successive victories. However when he launched Operation Barbarossa against Russia, it was a gamble too far. The use of Einsatzgruppen undermined the chance to gain potential allies, especially in the Ukraine , where the invaders were treated as liberators from Stalin’s yoke. Unfortunately, Himmlers Einsatzgruppen following the army, undertook brutal repressions of the local population, turning potential recruits into partisans who would plague the german war effort.
Couple this with America joining the Allies in December 1941, the Germans were doomed to failure, especially once the USA really geared up its war production.
Finally the Nazi’s madness of the Holocaust, meant huge amount of valuable resources, manpower and transport got tied up conducting the wholesale slaughter of the Jewish populations.
I think people ignored the biggest factor: Adolf Hitler himself meddled on every military affair since invading the Soviet Union.
Before and during the early phase of WW2, Hitler let his Generals to operate in relative autonomy, and this greatly provided the German military their ability to maneuver. In fact, the victory against France in 1940 was done in a great deal that Hitler let his Generals to do their jobs. Similarly, Germany defeated Poland in 1939 because Hitler let his Generals alone. Hitler could do none of it.
However, the moment he visited the tomb of Napoleon in 1940 certainly played a role. Napoleon had a failed campaign in Russia at 1812, but Napoleonâs bold decision impressed Adolf so much that he wanted to emulate Napoleon, albeit with some correction to avoid the mistakes of the French Emperor. This was the moment that Hitler developed his megalomania about himself being the greatest leader in the world (which, sadly, was reinforced by his WW1 experience). Once a megalomaniac, forever be.
Hitler envisioned a campaign of conquest of the entire of the Soviet Union, disregarding his Generals, who claimed that the Soviets posed no threat to Germany (and they were correct, given the Sovietsâ abysmal military following the Winter War), and that they should preserve troops to control their European colonies. But Hitler refused to heed on and proceeded with a full-scale invasion of the Soviet Union.
The invasion was originally a success, the Germans rampaged across the Soviet Union like in no manâs land. The Soviets were under constant retreat, losing materials, men and weapons, tons of them, like snakes without heads. German troops killed more than ten times that of the Soviets. But as the Germans were closing to Moscow, Hitler surprisingly demanded a total siege over Kyiv instead of reaching Moscow. Ultimately, Nazi Germany conquered Kyiv, but they missed the Moscow opportunity and allowed the Soviets to regroup when the harsh winter arrived, and the Operation was a huge strategic failure.
However, Hitler didnât listen. Dude the declared war against the United States after his Japanese allies bombed the Americans in Pearl Harbour. This decision was the worst mistake ever, as it allowed the United States to unleash its might, and put the US on the side of Britain, China and the hated Soviet Union. This decision set the tone for Nazi Germanyâs doom by fighting two fronts in one war, something Hitler, ironically, tried to prevent.
But thatâs not all. He again meddled on the affairs when his army was doing well in Stalingrad, Leningrad and the Caucasus. Especially in Stalingrad, when he consistently rebuffed efforts to retreat his 6th Army to safety, instead forcing them to fight an attrition war. Subsequently, the Nazis could not take over the Caucasus and even suffered tremendous casualties in Stalingrad before getting ass-beaten in 1943.
Yet Hitler could never overcome his paranoia. He kept interfering on the Nazi military structure, increasingly replacing competent commanders with yes-men. From 1943 onward, the Nazis were increasingly controlled by men reporting directly to Adolf and not anyone else. By centralising the whole command, Nazi Germanyâs war effort was undermined time and time and time whilst their Soviet opponents slowly decentralised command to fight the Germans. Similarly, he didnât accept any term to surrender to the Allied force in Western Europe when the United States and Britain committed their landing, despite his Generals warned that the US involvement meant the end of Nazi Germany. Unlike the Soviet Union though, the command of the British and American forces was mobile and decentralised.
Still, Hitler could not end his interference. His reckless decision in Italy, the Balkans and France cost his army. Despite the bravery of the German soldiers, they could not hold the line once American industrial superiority showed up itself. Remember that the same US that provided ammunition for the Soviet Union to alleviate Soviet war shortages played a major role in overturning the war in the Alliesâ favour. The same thing that would ultimately play doom to his Reich: the Nazis could not reproduce much things the Americans had been doing all the time.
To be fair, Adolf Hitler had everything at hand by 1941. He had a victorious army, his Germany was having a superb industrial strength and a strong military performance in many earlier conquests. And thing was going well in the Soviet Union, until Hitler messed up everything and killed off the opportunity of the Nazis.
