If the Germans never attacked USSR

Because it was a question how to get rid of Britain. By direct landing or by bombing, several plans were created and eventually they stopped on the bombing. I see nothing strange in the plan Sea Lion. It's a duty of warfare to have several plans in the pocket, just like Germany for instance had Plan Ikarus (invasion of Iceland), but since it was not necessery the plan has never been implemented, same with the Sea Lion.

He did secure it, because no one could hinder from the West. Who could? Spain? It was on the German side. Britain? They didn't have any ground forces to seriously hinder. You have read ''somewhere'' that ''there was a map of new South America'', sorry but I can't take that as evidence. You know the bird whispered me that Hitler wanted to go on the Moon. Besides you contradict to yourself, first you claim that Hitler wanted entire Europe and USSR now you claim about South America, weird really. Besides Hitler didn't want entire USSR, read Plan Ost if you read German, there was a plan to take only Soviet territories before Ural, and even in that Plan Ost there is a clear statement that Germany doesn't have enough people to colonize territory before Ural so some Russian citizens were going to be assimilated too for these aims. So how could Hitler want ''entire world'' if German documents acknowledge that Germany doesn't have people for colonizing even 1/4 of the Soviet territory, let alone the entire world. You can read Plan Ost here http://gplanost.x-berg.de/gplanost.html

 

It's Hitler we are talking about. He did not need logic for his foreign policies. Since when did it stop him from attacking more foes than German military could chew?

Same with Japan. They were attacking China, a country over 10 times their own population, it took them years just to secure the coast area where they could get naval support. Yet it didn't stop them from hit Soviets twice during the same time, and then went down south to take over entire Indochina and Philippines after picking a fight with UK, US, and the French at the same time.

 

Here you do a great mistake. Hitler was very logical person. And very duly prepared to attack USSR. Besides who said that Hitler couldn't chew USSR? He could, don't forget that Germany was fighting not alone, they attacked USSR with Romanian, Hungarian, Finnish and Italian troops too, the industry of the entire Europe was working on the Reich, hundreds of thousands volunteers from all over the Europe were joing Wehrmacht, for instaice according to the Soviet records, in 1945, there were 517.000 Hungarians captured, 187.000 Romanians, 157.000 Austrians, 60.000 Poles, 23.000 Fremch, 69.000 Czechoslovaks, 21.000 Yugoslavs, 4.700 Dutch, I don't take into account wounded and killed. Just some curious facts, during the operation Barbarossa around 25% of the troops were from Hungary, Romania, Italy and Finland. During the Stalingrad's battle 45% of the troops were the troops of other countries, primary armies of Hungary, Italy, Croatia, Romania. Little Finland mobilized 530.000 troops against the Red Army on the Karelian front, imagine that number - 530.00 and it's from Finland country with population around 5 million. Hitler had Swedish ore, Romanian oil, French industrial power and many other fruits. So Germany was not fighting ''alone against the whole world'' in fact from 1941 till 1944, it was united continental Europe versus USSR slightly supplied by US. That can barely be called as ''attacking more foes than German military could chew''.

China was almost unidustrialized country with the civil war inside it. An easy target. Population superiority is nothing against logistics, good industry and good military technology. Chinese army was completely inferior, no good logistics and dozens of conflicts inside China that hindred China to unite against Japs.

 

Those "other" troops serving under Hitler were under-equipped, under-trained. In the Battle of Stalingrad, it's the "other" troops' lines being broken through by the Soviet counter attack which resulted in the encirclement of the Germans inside the city. Those troops were not very useful to the Germans.


You are only counting USSR as the only opponent of Nazi Germany. Hitler did not knock UK out of action. Soviet population alone outnumbered Germany by over 2 to 1. The occupied areas did not fully collaborate with the Nazis. While they were free to steal resources from the occupied areas, if the people there had fully supported them then they would have millions more troops, which wasn't the case.

 

Without those other troops there would be no Stalingrad battle at all. And since we don't have ''train-meter'' it's quite weird to say that those troops were not useful, they were very useful, without them operation Barbarossa would fail, cos they helped to tak Red Army into the pockets attacking from numerous directions.

They didn't need ''millions more troops'', war is not a competion on the number of the troops. As well as any numerical superiority in the warfare with tanks, artillery and aviation is useless. What's the point of numerous superiority 2:1 if in 1942 Soviets had problems with artillery shells supply and on shell sent to Germans from the Soviet side, Soviets were recieving 3 shells in response, that makes any numerical superiority completely useless.

As for UK, their ground fight forces were less than even Hungarian forces, so they were not a serious threat for Axis at all (at least until 1944). Otherwise Hitler would not attack USSR until beating UK, many historians fail to explain that and s0-called explanation they usually bring is that ''Hitler was a lunatic'', I'm sorry but lunatic would never conquer entire Europe and would never take a power in Germany, a lunatic would never create best army in those times, a lunatic would never eradicate horrible unemployment rate in Germany and inflation so swiftly, so calling Hitler as ''illogical lunatic'' is not scientific explanation whatsoever, I always chuckle when encounter such explanation from some scholars. Hitler was one of the most cleverest politicians of XX century, I would say a titan of the policy and he attacked USSR without beating UK for two reasons:

a) his aim was USSR

b) UK couldn't hinder his Soviet campaign at all

 

Well, like you said, number alone isn't everything. Now you say UK had less ground forces than Hungarian, but who actually took Hungarians serious back then or even now? UK had superior navy and air force, they were still the largest colonial power and control varies of countries and resources. They had one of most crowded country - India, and they had old Ottoman Empire's Middle East - oil. How was UK not a series threat? They had the resources and manpower, that's all they need to come up with massive troops and equipments.

If Hilter only wanted to "secure" his west border, then why did he attack other smaller countries other than France and UK? The others were no threat at all to Germany.

 

I was saying that UK had less ground forces because of the one main thing. Germans were remembering the lesson of WW I, that fighting on 2 fronts is futile. So the main goal was to avoid fighting on 2 fronts, that's what Hitler did. UK definitely had colonies, good naval forces and so on, but they didn't have one main thing, ground forces that were capable to open the second front, so that was more than enough for Hitler. Of course he could try to invade British islands that's why Operation Sea Lion was considered, but what was the point of that? Main danger from Britain was purely logistical, capturing British Islands was a waste of time, cos Britain would anyway still keep its fleet, they would simply escape to Canada and continue to hamper Germans from the sea and helping to USSR delivering cargos through their colonies. Since the main objective of Hitler was not Britain but USSR, he tried to pacify Britain via ordinary bombing, and also sending Rudolf Hess hoping that Britain could actually become an ally, it didn't work out so he abandoned Britain. The main objective was anyway to avoid fighting on 2 fronts, and Hitler achieved that objective, the rest was already unimportant.

As I've already said, Denmark and Norway were attacked in order to encircle Sweden and prevent possible British take-over over the Swedish ore. As you can see he didn't attack Sweden, cos Sweden was supplying him with crucial for Germany ore, without that ore they couldn't wage any long-term war. Belgium and Netherlands were a part of the French campaign, like in WW I, in WW II these two countries were used for extra maneuvering to avoid fighting on Magino line. Greece was a pure help to Italian ally who had interest in that region. Yugoslvia bordered German south border, had access to the sea and was pro-English country, so it would be very dangerous to keep them unoccupied since its territory could be used by British airforces that could bomb German industrial parts on the south. And the last little country remains - Poland, but geographically you can see that Poland was on his way to USSR, without invading Poland, attacking USSR would be almost impossible. Note that Hitler didn't invade Switzerland, cos there was no sense in it whatsoever, he didn't try to invade Portugal for instance, cos again there was no sense in it. He only invaded those countries that had strategical value to make Soviet campaign more comfortable.

 

What exactly "ores" are you talking about? You referred to "Swedish ore" many times, I don't have a clue what exactly ore it is.

If Hitler truly did not try to go after the countries on his west side, why didn't he attempt to form an alliance with them instead of hitting them before his (what you called) real objective - USSR?

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swedish_iron_mining_during_World_War_II here you are. I was talking about Iron ore without which Hitler would have no tanks for long-term wars

Well actually he attempted. Hitler was offering the alliance to Poland in 1938, you may find tons of materials about it, it's quite known fact. It is also quite known fact that Hitler was sympathising to Britain and also was seeking for an alliance with them. The only exception here is France, but French case is quite interesting, the thing is that Hitler was quite revansistic towards France due to the WW I, as u remember after Germany routed France, Hitler even insisted that the venue where French should sign an act of capitulation should be the same wagon in the compiegne forest where Germany was signing their capitulation after WW I. Generally Franco-German relations were very tensed since Franco-Prussian war in XIX, they were beating each other by terms and always bilaterally seeking for revenge after defeats, so the alliance between them was impossible due to rather hostile chemistry that was created between these countries + France was afraid of Germany as hell and scared to play any games with them since they didn't trust them, Britain could afford it cos they were cut by La Manch, while France had very uncomfortable position - the resulf of such fears was this pact http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Franco-Soviet_Treaty_of_Mutual_Assistance France was ready to cooperate with anyone if that would gurantee them not to tangle with Germany alone.

 

It is hard to imagine Germany and entire western Europe doesn't have any iron ore... and Hilter had to relay on Swedan's iron ore.

I know how Germans and French don't like each other due to the long history of the past... but the British and the French weren't exactly friends for most part of the history. They've been fighting for hundreds of years up until the last century. Then all the sudden they become the "best friends" in early 1900s.

 

Had Hitler decided against attacking Russia, then:

1. 45 million lives would have been saved in USSR (Almost all of those who died were ethnic Russian or Ukrainian)
2. USSR, with a population of 500 million in 2010 would have been the one and only superpower in the world. (USSR had a population of 300 million in 1989, but you should consider the lowered birth rate in addition to the deaths, and the additional natural increase which would have resulted from the 45 million lost lives. Also, most of those who killed were very young).
3. Russian would have become one of the most popular languages in the world.
4. We would have seen a Mars mission before 2010
5. With its vast territory, immense natural resources and huge population, USSR would have become the No.1 food exporter in the world.

 

Uh? Russia alone has only 120 million people as of today and their population is decreasing. All the former Soviet republics had even fewer population, many of them are just tiny countries with a few million people aside of a few bigger ones such as Ukraine. How did you get such high number? 500 million? 300 million?

Even the Russians themselves claimed 20 millions were killed during WWII. No were close to the 45 million figure you came up with.

Soviet Union might be big, but only relatively small part of it were good for farming. They were always a food importer and still is.

 

Well... I don't want to be rude.... but you should have researched a bit before posting this.

1. The population of USSR was 290 million in 1989.
As I pointed out earlier, almost all of the 45 million people killed during WW2 were young people.

Lets take a conservative estimate of 30 million young people.

At the start of WW2 (in 1939), the Total Fertility Rate (children born per woman) in Russia was 4.907

So... 15 million families ==> 73.6 million children (born in 1940-1950)

TFR was 1.97 in 1975
That means ==> 72.5 million grandchildren (born in 1965-1980)

TFR is currently 1.71

That means ==> 62 million great grand children (born in 1985 - 2010)

Now lets calculate the population loss

a) Young people lost in WW2 ==> 1 million (According to the life table of Ukraine 1999, survival ratio at 85 yrs age is 4%)
b) children ==> 49.7 million (SR of 67.5% at 65 yrs)
c) grandchildren ==> 67.5 million (SR of 93% at 40 yrs)
d) great grandchildren ==> 60.7 million (SR of 98% at 15 yrs)

Total population loss: 1m + 49.7m + 67.5m + 60.7m ==> 178.9 million

Population of USSR in 1989 ==> 286,717,000

At 0.5% population growth, the population in 2010 will be ===> 318,376,307


So Total population of USSR including WW2 population losses ===> 497,276,306


Population as of 2012 ===> 502,261,501

(I didn't even took in to account the birth deficiency as a result of war)

And for your attention Sir, the population of Russia is 143 million as of 2012, and is increasing at a rate of 0.25 million a year. Population of Ukraine is 46 million, while that of Uzbekistan is 28 million.

2) According to Vadim Erlikman (Poteri narodonaseleniia v XX veke : spravochnik) direct casualties from WW2 in USSR amounted to 26.6 million (10.7 million military and 15.9 million civilian). However, at least 18 million more died during WW2 period and during the post WW2 period due to disease, starvation and post WW2 deportations.

Also, during the 1939-1949 period, the birth rate in USSR was reduced from 4.5 million births per year to just 1 million births. Birth deficiency alone amounted to 20 million.

3) Percentage-wise the amount of agriculture land in the USSR might be less. But still it amounted to more than 2,500,000 square kilometers. (Area could easily be increased by 2 times, if the Northern river reversal is implemented). Even this 2.5 million is more than the total available agricultural land in the USA.

 

Of all the 'what ifs' that WW2 throws up, this premise is the flimsiest being as Hitler came to power basically stating in his own convoluted way that he was going to attack and conquer Russia, both for political and expanasionist reasons. I often wonder if someone had walked up to him at all these peace meetings the Allies held in the 30's and said "Adolf, you cant have any of Europe, but we can guarantee you'll have Russia and Stalin will be dead". I reckon he'd have gone for the deal..

 

Sometimes greed overtakes reason. He wanted both the USSR and Western Europe. Had he gone for any one of them, he might have got it.

 

well it depends what they did with those forces that were otherwise in russia

 

The loss of millions of German troops in Russia was what ultimately resulted in the allied liberation of France and other Western European nations. Had Hitler concentrated on Europe rather than Russia, then he might have got the entire Western Europe under his control.

 

The question is, what if the germans did not attck russia. The 'battel of britian" was over, romal was new to north affrica, and the u-boat battel was in high gear. The desert war would have been quick and deciseve, rommal would have won, the u-boat war would have been strnthend and would have forced britain to make peace, in a sence, WW2 would have been over, hitler was sick, and would have died by 45,46 anyway and peace would have taken hold, and russia and us would not have had the cold war, vietman, korea, and a arms race. Now I hope this spurs a decusion, because I have just skimed the top, many things would have taken place all the while this was going on, and what about Japan?

 

Read Mein Kampf,everything hitler did was based on eastern lebensraum.Hitler and Stalin could not coexist for long.

 

oh I have, and even have a very old copy (prob. one of the first written in englesh). Hitler and Stalin personal would never have gotten along, both were in thier own little world, but as a fourm of gov. they were not far apart. I gess what I was trying to say is "what would have happened if germany did not attack russia when they did" it was late and if they waited untill next year I belive it would have turned out different.