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Alternate History- What if Hitler had not invaded Russia, would Germany still control Western Europe today?


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2 hours ago, RichTO90 said:

We've been through this ad nauseum. No, "increasing production of fast production types" is delusional. The average construction time for MFPs was not "fast". The Siebel has its own limitations. The K-Schiff program never got off the ground.

Without Barbarossa this type of program would increase in industrial priority and with no Americans and a long war, the K-ship program would get off the ground.

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Toulon and Marseilles do not help with Tripoli and Benghazi, nor is it likely the French will cooperate unless the Germans occupy Vichy. It also does not help with lack of shipping and lack of escorts. The Luftwaffe's record versus subs was not to good.

Toulon and Marseilles most certainly do help with the provisioning of an Axis fleet base at Gibraltar, and most certainly do assist with the transport of supplies and equipment to Libya via Vichy Tunisia.  If you are thinking that the French will "disagree" to do this, then that's fine, but I see no objective hurdles to the Axis succeeding with the demands.  Not like the Vichy were  in a strong position to negotiate.

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Huh? Who is "Stuart"? WTF do you think you are babbling about sending "all" of the RAF "to the Med"?

Who is Stuart?  Check about every 2nd post on the site.

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2 hours ago, RETAC21 said:

Glenn should know this already as it had been repeated to him multiple times. Not only Franco knew, the Germans knew too that having Spain a belligerent would be a burden and were in no mood or position to fulfill the requirements to feed the population and arm the armies.

There were a lot of countries that were in "no mood" to be occupied by Germany in 1940 and 1941.  Didn't stop the Germans from doing it.

 

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47 minutes ago, wendist said:

If Hitler believed that the campaign in Russia would be as fast and decisive as the one in the west a year earlier, which I believe he did, then the loss of the shipments of goods from Stalin would not be such a big deal. The resumption of such shipments could even be a condition in a peace treaty with whatever is left of the SU. 

Yep, quite possible.

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2 hours ago, RETAC21 said:

Glenn should know this already as it had been repeated to him multiple times. Not only Franco knew, the Germans knew too that having Spain a beligerent would be a burden and were in no mood or position to fulfill the requirements to feed the population and arm the armies.

Post-war, the Hendaye interview has been inflated by regime historians to have Hitler desperate for Franco to join the war, but it was far from that, as the lukewarm reception of the Blue Division in Germany shows.

Here Glenn, you are getting older and evidently can't read what was posted.

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47 minutes ago, RETAC21 said:

Here Glenn, you are getting older and evidently can't read what was posted.

The German negotiations with Spain in 1940 were with an eye to war in the east in 1941.  They didn't have the time or the troops.  We're talking about where there is no Barbarossa.  The Germans DO have the time and DO have the troops to invade Spain.  There is no need for negotiation between Berlin and Madrid for food shipments or equipment supplies because the Germans do not require Franco's consent to occupy Spain.  That's what the German army is for.  There are no concessions, no back and forth.  Either Franco declares war on the UK without condition, or the Germans will invade Spain and overthrow Franco and impose another stooge in a coup that will do the same thing.  Either way, no food shipments, no equipment shipments.

On the A-bomb - a question.  How did you come to the conclusion that less than a dozen A-bombs would be more effective than 20,000 tons of nerve gas?

 

Edited by glenn239
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What good does Spain do for the Germans if they can't feed the people they need to run the place and supply labour?  Note that there are no local supplies to loot.  How do they deal with the inevitable Allied supported unrest?  What about the political fallout amongst up to then friendly states like Italy, Romania, Bulgaria, Hungary, and Finland?

 

As for NBCW, we speaking of twelve ten to twenty kiloton devices and then a s-load of mustard and anthrax if the Nazis reply with nerve gas.  CW agents also do not destroy things while nuclear weapons tend to break stuff really, really well.  A ground burst on the Fuehrerbunker would be most interesting.

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The German negotiations with Spain in 1940 were with an eye to war in the east in 1941.

Not really, the negotiations focused on Spain joining the war, what would be given in exchange and Gibraltar. Germany could always invade it yes, but this means opening another front when Hitler wanted to invade the Soviet Union. It also means British taking over Canary Islands
 

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What good does Spain do for the Germans if they can't feed the people they need to run the place and supply labour?

Pretty much nothing. I can only think of good bases in the Mediterranean/Atlantic and the possibility of taking Gibraltar. Of course, Spanish Army was significant in numbers but would need equipment. The problem for the Germans as well was that Spanish claims/demands to join the war clased with those of Vichy France.

 

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3 hours ago, glenn239 said:

Without Barbarossa this type of program would increase in industrial priority and with no Americans and a long war, the K-ship program would get off the ground.

Why? Why not the U-Boot program? Why not the KM surface program? Why not the LW? Meanwhile, most of the small boat building capacity of Western Europe, Italy, and the Danube got involved in the MFP program...and still delays were endemic.

Nor is there any real reason given - still - why there is "no Americans".

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Toulon and Marseilles most certainly do help with the provisioning of an Axis fleet base at Gibraltar, and most certainly do assist with the transport of supplies and equipment to Libya via Vichy Tunisia.  If you are thinking that the French will "disagree" to do this, then that's fine, but I see no objective hurdles to the Axis succeeding with the demands.  Not like the Vichy were  in a strong position to negotiate.

I suspect you know better, having been corrected on this over and over again. Gibraltar requires Spain and there is little chance of Franco coming in.

Marseilles and Toulon are great if you want a German buildup in Tunisia...why not Casablanca, Benghazi, and Oran while you're at it? The problem is you only have 779 kilometers to get from Tunis to Tripoli...and then another 1,025 to Benghazi...and then another 471 to Tobruk...and another 684 to Alexandria. You've simply dodged one bullet - the lack of throughput of the Tripolitanian and Cyrenaican ports - and walked into another bullet - the length of the land route from the ports to the AOR.

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Who is Stuart?  Check about every 2nd post on the site.

Okay then, where did you get the idea that Stuart had command of the RAF in World War II? Or that the real commanders would be daft enough to send the entire RAF to the Middle East? Especially given that by mid 1941 they were already reaching parity with the Luftwaffe?

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1 hour ago, alejandro_ said:

Not really, the negotiations focused on Spain joining the war, what would be given in exchange and Gibraltar. Germany could always invade it yes, but this means opening another front when Hitler wanted to invade the Soviet Union. It also means British taking over Canary Islands
 

Pretty much nothing. I can only think of good bases in the Mediterranean/Atlantic and the possibility of taking Gibraltar. Of course, Spanish Army was significant in numbers but would need equipment. The problem for the Germans as well was that Spanish claims/demands to join the war clased with those of Vichy France.

 

Clearly the Spanish armed forces would be of little or no use if Franco said yes and the remnants a hindrance if he said no.  Bases without any useful local labour or supplies might be troublesome to operate, especially if guerrilleros interfere with the supply lines. Do recall how Bonaparte found occupying Spain to be something of a nuisance.

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7 hours ago, seahawk said:

https://www.uni-muenster.de/imperia/md/content/hist_sem_swg/studium/ws0708/pfister_vorlesung_dw/s092wkfolien.pdf

Here is a pdf in German showing the industry development from 1939-1944.

(snip)

Yes, very good, thanks, but realize "increased productivity" in both general industry and specifically in the war industry had many causes, not just the contract changes or the "rationalization" by Speer? Among other things, the expansion of industry, especially the aircraft and armored vehicle industry, was also a product of investment both prewar - such as Nibelungerwerk - and in the early war years. Additionally, the input of more workers affected output.

Nor does any of this have to do with "going to a total war economy".

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It is also quite interesting that the occupied territories in western and central Europe had a much bigger positive influence on the German war economy than the territories in Russia. There the industry was largely damaged and also suffering from the incompetence of It is also quite interesting that the occupied territories in western and central Europe had a much bigger positive influence on the German war economy than the territories in Russia. There the industry was largely damaged and also suffering from the incompetence of Herman Göring and his "Reichswerke", which never became profitable.and his "Reichswerke", which never became profitable.

Indeed, but the Germans initially made limited use of that industrial capacity and instead profited by making off with raw material stockpiles and machine tools. The looting, the artificial splitting of France into two economic entities, and later sabotage limited the use that was made of that industry.

BTW, the Reichswerke Herman Göring became very profitable...for Herman Göring. 😁

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On 1/14/2021 at 8:03 AM, wendist said:

IF the British ever decided to cross the Swedish-Finnish border that is. Chanses are they would not since at the moment the Allies land in Norway the Germans would have to react, most probably by invading Sweden. The British forces then occupying northern Sweden would soon be fully involved in fighting the Germans somewhere in Sweden the way they did in Norway, Belgium and Greece in the real war.

The impression given by the Maisky diaries is that the British were furious at the news of Finland's armistice with the USSR, and that had the Finns held out until May, war was imminent. The diaries reflect a Soviet interpretation of conversations and events, however.

If the British and French decide not to cross the neutral zone, there is another option: to land in Finland directly, or in the USSR itself. 

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On 1/14/2021 at 12:55 PM, R011 said:

American public opinion was shifting in favour of war.  Polls just before Pearl Harbor showed a clear majority believed the US would go to war with Germany and were in favor of risking war to do all possible to help the Allies.  At some point sooner or later, there would have been a tipping point - a U Boat too many for the Germans, another USN destroyer or American passenger ship, something.

Point taken, with a counterpoint being that in 5 months leading up to December 7, the US population had been holding its breath in fear and perhaps some amazement at the possibility of Germany defeating the USSR. If ever there was an event to help convince that sleeping(?) population of the danger posed by the Wehrmacht, potentially crushing Soviet Russia in one swift campaign would be it. 

Without that event, the majority American belief in war and actions that risk it may not be as clear.

Edited by Nobu
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18 hours ago, Stuart Galbraith said:

The point is, we have bought a lot of this 'Britain alone' bollocks, but how alone were we when we still dominated the seas and we had reliable allies in the rest of the Empire to fight with us. And the Czechs, and the Poles, and the Free French....

I think it has almost been a requirement for any history of WW2 to have a "Britain Stands Alone" chapter in it. I have certainly not questioned this. At least not until now.

Re: the Poles, the Soviet ambassador to Britain in this timeframe observed that of the 17,000-strong Free Polish contingent in Britain, 6500 were officers. I don't think it was intended as a compliment :D

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5 hours ago, RichTO90 said:

Yes, very good, thanks, but realize "increased productivity" in both general industry and specifically in the war industry had many causes, not just the contract changes or the "rationalization" by Speer? Among other things, the expansion of industry, especially the aircraft and armored vehicle industry, was also a product of investment both prewar - such as Nibelungerwerk - and in the early war years. Additionally, the input of more workers affected output.

Nor does any of this have to do with "going to a total war economy".

Indeed, but the Germans initially made limited use of that industrial capacity and instead profited by making off with raw material stockpiles and machine tools. The looting, the artificial splitting of France into two economic entities, and later sabotage limited the use that was made of that industry.

BTW, the Reichswerke Herman Göring became very profitable...for Herman Göring. 😁

My point is that Germany needed to change how it run its economy to invade Russia, but they did not need to invade Russia to change the running of the economy. In fact the supply of critical raw materials dropped when trading with the Soviets ended, while the need for them increased due to the need for an even larger army and a lot higher attrition rates.

It is the same with the slave labour. Slave labour was needed because they needed more manpower for the army. In something of a stalemate with the Brits, they do not need this manpower. Which means they do need less slave labour and industry production would probably be higher, as the trained workers would not need to become canon fodder for the Eastern front. I have not yet seen one assessment that showed that the invasion of Russia was a net positive for Germany.

Obviously if you intended to invade Russia, you need to do it in the historical time frame and bet on the idea that captured resources will take you to Moscow and see the Soviets surrender. But if they do not go into Russia, they would be stronger, not weaker in a war limited to the Empire alone. 

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11 hours ago, glenn239 said:

Without Barbarossa this type of program would increase in industrial priority and with no Americans and a long war, the K-ship program would get off the ground.

Toulon and Marseilles most certainly do help with the provisioning of an Axis fleet base at Gibraltar, and most certainly do assist with the transport of supplies and equipment to Libya via Vichy Tunisia.  If you are thinking that the French will "disagree" to do this, then that's fine, but I see no objective hurdles to the Axis succeeding with the demands.  Not like the Vichy were  in a strong position to negotiate.

Who is Stuart?  Check about every 2nd post on the site.

You're only jealous of my speed typing capability.:P

 

5 hours ago, Nobu said:

I think it has almost been a requirement for any history of WW2 to have a "Britain Stands Alone" chapter in it. I have certainly not questioned this. At least not until now.

Re: the Poles, the Soviet ambassador to Britain in this timeframe observed that of the 17,000-strong Free Polish contingent in Britain, 6500 were officers. I don't think it was intended as a compliment :D

Yes. At the time it made sense, to get as much foreign support (American or otherwise) to back us up in what was a relatively stable, yet undeniably sticky situation. We were in trouble in 1940. But not nearly as much trouble as was presented then or subsequently. British politicians have emphasised it since, partly because it reflects on the heroic nature of Churchill (im not sure he really needs building up) and our military strength compared to other European nations (which they have done their best to emasculate at every given opportunity).

I remember when Derek Robinson made some of these observations back in the late 1980's in 'A Piece of Cake'. He was hauled over the coals for it, both over that and his depiction of less than perfect RAF pilots. OTOH, it was undeniably a national myth and someone had to smash it. It doesnt reflect any the less on the relatively few pilots that were defending us in 1940, or the significantly greater number of sailors that were airbrushed out the picture entirely, their efforts were still necessary. Germany simply wasnt up to it. I think even the US in early 1945 would have had their work cut out doing it.

Yeah, it was probably with a clicked fingers saying 'Damn, and I would have gotten away with it too, if it hadnt been for those damn British...'

 

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16 minutes ago, seahawk said:

My point is that Germany needed to change how it run its economy to invade Russia, but they did not need to invade Russia to change the running of the economy. In fact the supply of critical raw materials dropped when trading with the Soviets ended, while the need for them increased due to the need for an even larger army and a lot higher attrition rates.

It is the same with the slave labour. Slave labour was needed because they needed more manpower for the army. In something of a stalemate with the Brits, they do not need this manpower. Which means they do need less slave labour and industry production would probably be higher, as the trained workers would not need to become canon fodder for the Eastern front. I have not yet seen one assessment that showed that the invasion of Russia was a net positive for Germany.

Obviously if you intended to invade Russia, you need to do it in the historical time frame and bet on the idea that captured resources will take you to Moscow and see the Soviets surrender. But if they do not go into Russia, they would be stronger, not weaker in a war limited to the Empire alone. 

It didnt, but it would have meant the Nazi's not being Nazi's.

They didnt believe in mass production. They felt a Henry Ford production line weakened the Volk, and similar objections to having women working.

Basically they needed Albert Speer in 1939, with everyone getting out the way and stop playing survival of the fittest games. Which would have meant Hitler not being Hitler.

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3 hours ago, glenn239 said:

What the Japanese can offer to Stalin is dead Americans and no American influence in Asia.  The more the Japanese and Americans killed each other in the Pacific in stalemate, the better for the Soviet Union.

That might be worth a few hundred thousand barrels of oil, but how would the soviets get it to the Japanese? I don't think there was rail capacity in the Soviet far east to actually transport it.

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18 hours ago, glenn239 said:

The German negotiations with Spain in 1940 were with an eye to war in the east in 1941.  They didn't have the time or the troops.  We're talking about where there is no Barbarossa.  The Germans DO have the time and DO have the troops to invade Spain.  There is no need for negotiation between Berlin and Madrid for food shipments or equipment supplies because the Germans do not require Franco's consent to occupy Spain.  That's what the German army is for.  There are no concessions, no back and forth.  Either Franco declares war on the UK without condition, or the Germans will invade Spain and overthrow Franco and impose another stooge in a coup that will do the same thing.  Either way, no food shipments, no equipment shipments.

On the A-bomb - a question.  How did you come to the conclusion that less than a dozen A-bombs would be more effective than 20,000 tons of nerve gas?

 

No, they weren't, why do you make shit up? The Germans had the time and the troops historically in 1941-42 and didn't invade because the cost/benefit was clearly unfavorable, increasing their burden for very little benefit (as the main line of supply for the British already went around Africa and this would given the, the Canaries, Azores and Madeira as additional bases). In contrast to the underestimation of the Russians, the Germans had a direct experience of what fighting in Spain entailed and what kind of guerrilla war could wait for them (Hilter specifically mentioned this point).

On the A bomb question: yet another stupid strawman, what are you suggesting here, that the Germans can deliver 20.000 tons of nerve gas to Britain? how, if they were increasingly unable to attack Britain? and why less than a dozen A bombs? is this a number that comes out of your ass, again?

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9 hours ago, seahawk said:

My point is that Germany needed to change how it run its economy to invade Russia, but they did not need to invade Russia to change the running of the economy. In fact the supply of critical raw materials dropped when trading with the Soviets ended, while the need for them increased due to the need for an even larger army and a lot higher attrition rates.

It is the same with the slave labour. Slave labour was needed because they needed more manpower for the army. In something of a stalemate with the Brits, they do not need this manpower. Which means they do need less slave labour and industry production would probably be higher, as the trained workers would not need to become canon fodder for the Eastern front. I have not yet seen one assessment that showed that the invasion of Russia was a net positive for Germany.

Obviously if you intended to invade Russia, you need to do it in the historical time frame and bet on the idea that captured resources will take you to Moscow and see the Soviets surrender. But if they do not go into Russia, they would be stronger, not weaker in a war limited to the Empire alone. 

Sorry, but no, the Germans did not "change how it run its economy to invade Russia". It changed its government contracting policy after the invasion, but government contracting is only a small part of the overall economy. The economy was more effected by prewar economic decisions than anything done during wartime.

Labor was needed in Germany full stop, not just for the army. It just happened that the largest part of the Wehrmacht was the Heer. The first problem was overmobilization and non-selective manpower mobilization in the first year of the war, which resulted in the large-scale "labor leave" during fall and winter 1940-1941. The greatest advantage they can derive from not going to war with the USSR in spring 1941 is restructuring manpower utilization in the Wehrmacht, but they still require a massive Heer to protect the enormous borders of the Reich...and especially its eastern one. The Red Army is not going to disappear.

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3 hours ago, Harold Jones said:

That might be worth a few hundred thousand barrels of oil, but how would the soviets get it to the Japanese? I don't think there was rail capacity in the Soviet far east to actually transport it.

IN 1941, the Americans barely have a presence in Asia and the rest of the West's interests and forces are in South and Sout east Asia well away from Soviet interests in the north east.  Japan, on the other hand, shares a border with the USSR, is occupying the same parts of Asia in which Russia and the Soviet Union have been interested since the 19th century.  Japan also has noth9ing to trade for that oil, and when it came to foreign trade, Stalin seems to have understood the basic concept of buying and selling very well.

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5 minutes ago, RichTO90 said:

Sorry, but no, the Germans did not "change how it run its economy to invade Russia". It changed its government contracting policy after the invasion, but government contracting is only a small part of the overall economy. The economy was more effected by prewar economic decisions than anything done during wartime.

Labor was needed in Germany full stop, not just for the army. It just happened that the largest part of the Wehrmacht was the Heer. The first problem was overmobilization and non-selective manpower mobilization in the first year of the war, which resulted in the large-scale "labor leave" during fall and winter 1940-1941. The greatest advantage they can derive from not going to war with the USSR in spring 1941 is restructuring manpower utilization in the Wehrmacht, but they still require a massive Heer to protect the enormous borders of the Reich...and especially its eastern one. The Red Army is not going to disappear.

But compared to the need for the attack on the Soviet Union and the attrition in the fight, it would be much reduced. On the other hand they would keep access to the labour that was effective. (Soviet forced labour was largely not)

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8 minutes ago, seahawk said:

But compared to the need for the attack on the Soviet Union and the attrition in the fight, it would be much reduced. On the other hand they would keep access to the labour that was effective. (Soviet forced labour was largely not)

Given that the Heer already was over 180 divisions before the decision to invade the USSR its unlikely to reduce. Furthermore, given that over 7-million forced laborers were incorporated into the Reich and the Heer at peak was 1 July 1943 at 10,133,898 it is unlikely it can be shrunk enough to solve the labor problem and simultaneously defend the land borders of the Reich.

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9 hours ago, Stuart Galbraith said:

It didnt, but it would have meant the Nazi's not being Nazi's.

True.

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They didnt believe in mass production. They felt a Henry Ford production line weakened the Volk, and similar objections to having women working.

Basically they needed Albert Speer in 1939, with everyone getting out the way and stop playing survival of the fittest games. Which would have meant Hitler not being Hitler.

Not true. 😁

The notion the Nazis didn't believe in mass production isn't supportable, given the amount of support that Ford, GM, and Esso, among others, pumped into Nazi Germany's industrial expansion in the 1930s. The aircraft industry and motor vehicle industry were both designed for mass production, although heavy industry continued to rely heavily on traditional station production, but that was essentially true in every major nation.

What the Germans did have was major production bottlenecks, where the lack of true mass production had an effect. One was in the production of transmissions, which was centralized in one major manufacturer, Zahnradfabrik, that relied heavily on exacting artisanal techniques. Ignition systems and engines for aircraft and vehicles, and propellers for aircraft was another bottleneck.

The notion that putting Speer in charge in 1939 would have changed things is unsupportable and only became part of the belief system through his own exculpatory postwar writing that became accepted mostly by lazy English-language historians. Even the analysts of the USSBS didn't believe his crap, German economic historians in the 1960s on demolished the notion, and Tooze thoroughly exploded the idea in English in 2004, so why is it still so entrenched in World War II historical belief systems?

The German wartime production miracle was not primarily a result of "rationalization", although that did help. It was a result of prewar and wartime capital investment and increased labor inputs.

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On 1/11/2021 at 10:57 AM, RETAC21 said:

1. Yes, but... you forget they actually defeated the Germans, twice (remember WW1?). It may take longer and it may look different, but the end result would be the same because of factors that not invading Russia wouldn't change, as already pointed out.

2. No, you are wrong there, I am looking at the choices made by those at the top, specifically, Hitler, time and again in 1943 and 1944 to favor the production of bombers over figthers, I am looking at the choices made historically by the German military-industrial complex such as ignoring centimeter wave radar because they thought it was pointless, going all out in the production of Type VII boats instead of improving undersea performance because numbers were more important than quality, that 75% of the initial prodiction of the Me-262 was rejected by the Luftwaffe inspectors because of defects, that German ground radar vulnerability to windows wasn't addressed between 1943 and 1945 because they couldn't produce enough number of sets due to the limits of their electronic industry, and I could go on.

What you seem to miss here is that the bottlenecks on German production that were hampering their response to British technological advances (from radar to ECM, and see what Rich has to say about AvGas) were not impacted at all by the low-tech war being waged in the East, but by the limits of German industry and technology. The jet fighter and bomber is but one example, there was no way to get them in service before 1944 and that accepting limits to their performance. By 1945 there was already an allied reponse in the form of the Meteor and the P-80. So even if Helmut is a brilliant radar technician, there are no production facilities to get his ideas in production.

And that, without tackling the incompetence of the Nazis as industrial managers...

1. In WW1, France was never defeated, also US entered the war and forced German hand. In WW2, yes they won...with USA and USSR on their side. It does not follow from that they would have won it alone.

2. "Hitler favoured production of bombers". Actual production numbers tell a different story. As soon as Germany was forced into defensive, fighter production took over. In 1943, Germany produced twice the number of fighters compared to bombers, and next year over 10 times more.

So, the idea that Germany would helplessly watch Bomber Command to wreck their heartlands and would not produce a single fighter more because Hitler forbade it, is completely fantastical.

And what about production bottlenecks? Sure enough, they existed. How do you resolve them? Well, you build new capacity. Which they did. For example, synthetic fuel production something like doubled during the war. But a major problem was that so much of the workforce was solving issues at the Eastern Front, instead of resolving problems in the Home front.

Also, I don't understand why you write of Window like it won the bombing war, when in actual reality Bomber Command suffered its worst losses AFTER the Window was introduced.

About jets - I agree that the often-circulated fantasies about masses of He-280's sweeping the skies in 1943 if only for those stupid Nazis are nonsense. I do think that realistically, they could have sped up things by about six months without rare material shortage. That is, limited service for Me-262 using Jumo 004A engines circa start of 1944, and large-scale introduction in summer 1944. It's true Allied had their own jet projects so it would have been temporary advantage.

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