why did the krauts loze the war

[rummy]

I do think though that there are two events which could've given Germany victory.

People have always criticized Hitler’s move to split the panzer armies from army group centre. By sending Guderian south to Kiev and bagging 660,000 prisoners before Moscow had been taken. This had its obvious advantages, but one thing that I have never seen discussed is what instead of instead of sending those panzers and panzer grenadier division north to Leningrad, if they had of used them to continue the advance on Moscow from the northern flank? To me, in sending them to Leningrad they could have been a use to help any assault, though he didn’t opt for this and instead sieged it so that the Russians would be burdened rather than them, by the need to feed the massive civilian population over winter. To me if he had of ordered the assault and the city fell, it would of freed up an enormous amount of troops necessary to go on to Moscow the following spring, whilst bagging over 500,000+ prisoners, I know about then having to feed the civilians but to me this would of been worth the effort.

So to me he should have either let them continue to Moscow while it was largely undefended, or take the casualties losses in an assault on Leningrad.

The 2nd grand mistake was in operation blue (the 1942 offensive into the causacus). When the Germans were advancing towards Stalingrad they encountered virtually no resistance, so Hitler ordered the 4th Panzer army to crossover the path of Paulus's 6th Army group and head towards the Baku oilfields. What resulted was vehicles being congested, breaking down, units taking the wrong roads etc, and as a result Paulus's advance was virtually brought to a standstill for 3 weeks. And it was only in these last 3 weeks that the Russians built their defences and were reinforced around Stalingrad, hence had they not been delayed, they would of easily defeated the Russians there just like they did for every other major city. The reason why this is so important is not because of the reduced German casualties in men and tanks (who would also now be freed to counter any Russian historical envelopment attacks). But because the Volga was the only way left for the Russians to ferry all of their fuel being produced from the Baku oil fields into Russia. And with the Germans now easily able to prevent any ferries going up the river, Russia's economy/armies would of been brought to a standstill, and Stalin would have been forced to surrender.

Other contributing but not sole factors I think were Hitler’s decision not to put the economy onto a full time war production until after Feb 1943 was pretty dumb.

The Germans had the necessary winter clothing for the men, at the rail yards, but due to the extremely limited amount of trains that they were able to operate, it was a decision of "do we send them ammunition/fuel or clothes?". So it may very well of been Russia's use of different size gauge rail tracks that won them the war.

Though I wouldn’t entirely blame Hitler for their defeat either. Up until October 1942 he had achieved outstanding success in Europe, that is highly unlikely to of been unmatched by any other individual. He was able to lift Germany’s economy from the great depression and huge debt owed to the Allies for WW1, and it was he who encouraged and approved the blitzkrieg doctrine, against the advice of nearly all his senior army staff. He was responsible for the promotion and greater responsibilities given to relatively unknown generals in Von Manstein, Guderian, Rommel etc, and did away with the trench warfare loving old guard generals. He went for the close bomber support over the favoured strategic bombing (which was post-war realised to have been grossly over exaggerated). He favoured submarines over a surface fleet wanted by the admirals. He annexed Austria and Czechoslovakia without a shot fired, an amazing political manoeuvre.

Many thought Poland would withstand the German attack for 6 months (is why the French did not react initially), yet Hitler chose the plan responsible for Poland’s surrender in a matter of 5 weeks.

The senior German staff wanted to re-use the schliffein plan to invade France, though Hitler overrode them and went with the unknown commander Erich Von Mansteins plan with a few adjustments. A stroke of genius. Also at the time very few could criticize him for the halt order at Dunkirk. The German high command had wanted to halt Guderian’s advance for a number of days preceding it, however Hitler overrode them and let Guderian continue to make the Dunkirk encirclement even possible. In addition, the terrain was notoriously bad for tank warfare/movement, and France was still far from beaten, so he still needed all of his tanks to ensure victory against the French who were easily considered to have the greatest army in the world at the time.

What’s more is that he was right to consider Africa a complete sideshow, and the men and supplies were of much greater importance on the Russian front. As even if Germany did capture the middle east, they and the Italians combined didn’t have enough of a merchant fleet to ship any of the oil back to Europe for refinement and actual use.

In the face of the soviets 1941 winter counter offensives, every German general wanted abandon all their vehicles and equipment to withdraw hundreds of miles, however Hitler ordered them to adopt a hedgehog style of defence which amazingly held the line, with few combat casualties. And Historians have since believed that if the generals had of got their way, that not only would they have lost vast amounts of vital equipment but also that their troops would have been cut down and suffered numerously more thousands of casualties to frostbite. Then the decision to not allow the Stalingrad pocket to escape, whilst costly, was believed to have saved the entire Southern Group A (2-3 times larger than Army group 6) As it forced 7 Russian army groups to dig in around and tie down the German 6th army at Stalingrad, preventing the Russians from marching on to the undefended city of Rostov and cutting off and annihilating all of Army Group A, which was still trying to retreat as quickly from deep within the Caucasus. Coupled with the previous winters successful supply of the Demansyk pocket with 100,000+ German troops for several months, he actually made the correct decision. Though in a way I would put part of the blame back on him for not providing more resources that could have been made available to the front.

As for declaring war with the US, this had no meaningful influence whatsoever until 1943, by which time the Germans chances of success on the Eastern front were already gone. So whilst not smart, it only hastened the end of the war, which was always going to be decided by the results of the Eastern Front in 1941-42.

After the Germans unsuccessful attempt to rescue the Stalingrad pocket however, all hope of victory was lost, and no decision however crazy was going to stop the Russians.
I had previously thought that the best year to attack Russia would have been in 1942, though experts have since sighted that after the great Russian officer purges and their dismal performance of the Russians-Finnish war (1940), that their officers/doctrines and recruit training, was going through a complete overhaul, and would have been able to defend against the Germans in stages with much greater efficiency, had they had the time to carry it out. In addition the Russians would have finished relocating all of their factories into the Urals. Also by 1942, the Russians would have learned through their famous spy (Richard Sorge) that the Japanese did not plan to attack into Siberia, and hence the Russians could have moved most of their Siberian divisions into Eastern Europe to further bolster the defences.
 

[Bigpop]

I do think though that there are two events which could've given Germany victory.

People have always criticized Hitler’s move to split the panzer armies from army group centre. By sending Guderian south to Kiev and bagging 660,000 prisoners before Moscow had been taken. This had its obvious advantages, but one thing that I have never seen discussed is what instead of instead of sending those panzers and panzer grenadier division north to Leningrad, if they had of used them to continue the advance on Moscow from the northern flank? To me, in sending them to Leningrad they could have been a use to help any assault, though he didn’t opt for this and instead sieged it so that the Russians would be burdened rather than them, by the need to feed the massive civilian population over winter. To me if he had of ordered the assault and the city fell, it would of freed up an enormous amount of troops necessary to go on to Moscow the following spring, whilst bagging over 500,000+ prisoners, I know about then having to feed the civilians but to me this would of been worth the effort.

So to me he should have either let them continue to Moscow while it was largely undefended, or take the casualties losses in an assault on Leningrad.

I have always believed that if Hitler would have allowed Guderian and Hoth to attack Moscow when they were on the door step they could have taken Moscow. A minimum of 3 weeks passed before Hitler gave the order for Operation Typhoon and by then the Russians had dug trenches, holes, fortified, reinforced and strengthened the overall position diligently. This along with the fact that the men's morale had dropped somewhat because of the weather and the fact that Moscow was the original target, only to be halted with lead elements just 5 miles away, combined to ruin the German chances.

If Hitler would have stuck to his very own plan and time table the Wehrmacht could very well have crushed Russia. Barbarossa had gone nearly as well as it had been written up (which rarely ever happens in war lol). The fact that the Germans even had a CHANCE in '42 to still win must attest to the superb discipline, training, and leadership those men had. To be honest (and some will argue, and hindsight is 20/20!) Barbarossa was only scheduled to take 6 weeks and then by 1942 when the Germans STILL hadn't won I can't believe they didn't offer Russia peace. They were out manned, produced and in a foreign country, executing an offensive that was originally designed to last only into the early fall of 1941. Pretty crazy.

The 2nd grand mistake was in operation blue (the 1942 offensive into the causacus). When the Germans were advancing towards Stalingrad they encountered virtually no resistance, so Hitler ordered the 4th Panzer army to crossover the path of Paulus's 6th Army group and head towards the Baku oilfields. What resulted was vehicles being congested, breaking down, units taking the wrong roads etc, and as a result Paulus's advance was virtually brought to a standstill for 3 weeks. And it was only in these last 3 weeks that the Russians built their defences and were reinforced around Stalingrad, hence had they not been delayed, they would of easily defeated the Russians there just like they did for every other major city. The reason why this is so important is not because of the reduced German casualties in men and tanks (who would also now be freed to counter any Russian historical envelopment attacks). But because the Volga was the only way left for the Russians to ferry all of their fuel being produced from the Baku oil fields into Russia. And with the Germans now easily able to prevent any ferries going up the river, Russia's economy/armies would of been brought to a standstill, and Stalin would have been forced to surrender.

Ya these logistic nightmares were common for the Germans in Russia. They couldn't believe the lack of infrastructure lol.
Hoepner, 4th Panzer Group commander, had been haulted in the initial invasion at least once for an extended period (perhaps twice, can't recall right off my head) because Hitler was afraid they would penetrate too deep into Russia. While this could be a concern, the boldness of Barbarossa in the first place, would suggest that the field commanders needed also to be bold but were continually handcuffed by Hitler himself.

Other contributing but not sole factors I think were Hitler’s decision not to put the economy onto a full time war production until after Feb 1943 was pretty dumb.

The Germans had the necessary winter clothing for the men, at the rail yards, but due to the extremely limited amount of trains that they were able to operate, it was a decision of "do we send them ammunition/fuel or clothes?". So it may very well of been Russia's use of different size gauge rail tracks that won them the war.

The rail gauge was believed to be a major reason the Russians were beaten back by Germany in WWI so certainly it would be a reason in the reverse situation as well. The real problem was supply officers seemed to be crapping out on their jobs IMO. A story is related that around Christmas of 1941 a rail car brought up much needed supplies to one of the forward divisions. It was rumored they were getting some food stuffs and winter issue clothes. When they opened it, it was a massive car packed full of wine and champagne to celebrate the new year. And because of the weather...it was all frozen solid.

Though I wouldn’t entirely blame Hitler for their defeat either. Up until October 1942 he had achieved outstanding success in Europe, that is highly unlikely to of been unmatched by any other individual. He was able to lift Germany’s economy from the great depression and huge debt owed to the Allies for WW1, and it was he who encouraged and approved the blitzkrieg doctrine, against the advice of nearly all his senior army staff. He was responsible for the promotion and greater responsibilities given to relatively unknown generals in Von Manstein, Guderian, Rommel etc, and did away with the trench warfare loving old guard generals. He went for the close bomber support over the favoured strategic bombing (which was post-war realised to have been grossly over exaggerated). He favoured submarines over a surface fleet wanted by the admirals. He annexed Austria and Czechoslovakia without a shot fired, an amazing political manoeuvre.

Many thought Poland would withstand the German attack for 6 months (is why the French did not react initially), yet Hitler chose the plan responsible for Poland’s surrender in a matter of 5 weeks.

The senior German staff wanted to re-use the schliffein plan to invade France, though Hitler overrode them and went with the unknown commander Erich Von Mansteins plan with a few adjustments. A stroke of genius. Also at the time very few could criticize him for the halt order at Dunkirk. The German high command had wanted to halt Guderian’s advance for a number of days preceding it, however Hitler overrode them and let Guderian continue to make the Dunkirk encirclement even possible. In addition, the terrain was notoriously bad for tank warfare/movement, and France was still far from beaten, so he still needed all of his tanks to ensure victory against the French who were easily considered to have the greatest army in the world at the time.

What’s more is that he was right to consider Africa a complete sideshow, and the men and supplies were of much greater importance on the Russian front. As even if Germany did capture the middle east, they and the Italians combined didn’t have enough of a merchant fleet to ship any of the oil back to Europe for refinement and actual use.

Hitler had shown a great mind of strategy in the early going. That being said lets not take away from the field officers who actually had to execute the plans and see to the men and of course the men themselves who fought!

Guderian was not an unknown by any means. He had been a high ranking general is the Reichswehr army and had been the lead man in developing blitzkrieg tactics while the Germans and Russians worked together in the '30s.

Austria and Czechoslovakia were amazingly impressive, no question.

Dunkirk was a blunder no matter how you dress it IMO. Just me though.

Africa was most definitely a second rate theater. If you figure (just as a rough example) that Rommel was outnumbered 2:1 then Germany was tying down more enemies with less effort. While it was important, I don't ever think Africa was a "crux" of Germany's success or failure.

In the face of the soviets 1941 winter counter offensives, every German general wanted abandon all their vehicles and equipment to withdraw hundreds of miles, however Hitler ordered them to adopt a hedgehog style of defence which amazingly held the line, with few combat casualties. And Historians have since believed that if the generals had of got their way, that not only would they have lost vast amounts of vital equipment but also that their troops would have been cut down and suffered numerously more thousands of casualties to frostbite. Then the decision to not allow the Stalingrad pocket to escape, whilst costly, was believed to have saved the entire Southern Group A (2-3 times larger than Army group 6) As it forced 7 Russian army groups to dig in around and tie down the German 6th army at Stalingrad, preventing the Russians from marching on to the undefended city of Rostov and cutting off and annihilating all of Army Group A, which was still trying to retreat as quickly from deep within the Caucasus. Coupled with the previous winters successful supply of the Demansyk pocket with 100,000+ German troops for several months, he actually made the correct decision. Though in a way I would put part of the blame back on him for not providing more resources that could have been made available to the front.

I have considered the whole 6th Army pocket thing for some time in my research and I don't agree with it, here is why: on paper, yes they held out and soaked up vast more numbers of Russians. The problem was Germany had no real chance to get back to them (which is the whole point of them holding out, Hitler said they would counter attack and relieve them). If you take Bastogne as a similar example elsewhere, the 101st AB division was moving forward, relatively fresh. The 6th Army had been bogged down in heavy and costly urban warfare which most German commanders admit, Russian soldiers were better at, and they were extremely fatigued. If the 6th Army had been well rested and supplied and just moved in, THEN got cut off, I think they could have held out. But the battered divisions were so war weary already (and especially from the previous offensives, not just the fighting at Stalingrad) they simply couldn't consistently defend their positions. Simply put, in my opinion, the men were stretched too thin and were just beat tired.

As for declaring war with the US, this had no meaningful influence whatsoever until 1943, by which time the Germans chances of success on the Eastern front were already gone. So whilst not smart, it only hastened the end of the war, which was always going to be decided by the results of the Eastern Front in 1941-42.

After the Germans unsuccessful attempt to rescue the Stalingrad pocket however, all hope of victory was lost, and no decision however crazy was going to stop the Russians.
I had previously thought that the best year to attack Russia would have been in 1942, though experts have since sighted that after the great Russian officer purges and their dismal performance of the Russians-Finnish war (1940), that their officers/doctrines and recruit training, was going through a complete overhaul, and would have been able to defend against the Germans in stages with much greater efficiency, had they had the time to carry it out. In addition the Russians would have finished relocating all of their factories into the Urals. Also by 1942, the Russians would have learned through their famous spy (Richard Sorge) that the Japanese did not plan to attack into Siberia, and hence the Russians could have moved most of their Siberian divisions into Eastern Europe to further bolster the defences.

Ya imo, if the Germans hadn't won by EARLY 1942, they weren't going to win. To many "secondary" issues had gone against them, like Japan's armies not threatening the Russian Eastern borders, Russian production, German fatigue, and a whole wash list of other issues.

[SiopaoBrigade]

The german army wasn't "EVIL" Most of the Wehrmacht lost their faith in Hitler and didn't like his inhumane acts.

Most of the attempts to kill Hitler actually came from his own officers.

Later into the war the SS replaced the Wehrmacht as the main military force of the German army because of the Wehrmacht's unfaithfulness to the Fuhrer.

I salute all the Wehrmacht soldiers that disagreed with Hitler

[Paciat]

The krauts lost the war because they were bastards and no Ruski, Tommy or Yankee would allow such evil to exist in their world.
Millions died to stop them

Soviets were the real evil bastards. Any old guy from Ukraine or Poland can tell you that.

[comeone]

[/quote]
Soviets were the real evil bastards. Any old guy from Ukraine or Poland can tell you that.
[/quote]
the soviets were just as or more terryfing as the germans (some of the ss or hitlers "death commandos" who were let of the chain in russia) and to think maybe 6 million jews could have lived if hitler had deported to madagascar like he wanted to.

[Tarkka-ampuja]

All I need to say is that Germany and Japan got cocky and pissed off the only 2 countries that could defeat them. Germany pissed off Russia and Japan pissed off America.

[Cartoon Boy]

You have to give the Germans credit where credit is due. Two cracks at the world title.

[gustavowizard]

I would resume like this:

Germany lost the war because Hitler was GREEEEDY lol, simple;

Why fight in 2 fronts at same time? why did he invaded Russia at that moment? i say excess of confidence man, we tought the germans was sooooo superior that he would win in both fronts; insanity; cant fight americans, british and russians same time, he should fight just americans and england first then after WIN the west front, then, just then went to east to fight russians...
There are about 1000 others reasons but i think this was the major. Overwhelming.

Pessoal Observation; im not Jew, but Thanks God Hitler lost man, im spanish and im not sure how Hitler felt about us ( my family decent from Spanish and Portugueses) lol, maybe after the jews Hitler could aim for us
Personally i hate Nazists more than i dislike the capitalism (not that i like comunism eighter) well what i like then? i dunno... MONARCHY? LOOOOL JK..

[pnoozi]

A lot of people argue that Germany could have won the war by honoring its pact with the Soviet Union.  Germany certainly would have had much greater odds if they hadn't been bogged down on an eastern front; the problem is, I think the conflict with the Soviet Union was inevitable.

1) Capitalist fascism and communism are incompatible ideologies which are inherently offensive to each other.
2) Hitler and Stalin hated each other.
3) Let's be honest... both countries were making plans to attack the other.  If Germany hadn't made the first move, the Soviets would have.

So taking that into consideration... how could Germany have won?  Easy... unite the capitalist world against the communists.

What did Germany have to fear from France?  LOL... was France going to invade?  Hell no.

Hitler should have invaded Eastern Europe under the premise of defeating communism.  He could have gotten nearly the entire western world on board with that.  I feel like the Americans, French and British would have at least helped supply the offensive.  Germany would have stood to gain large chunks of Eastern Europe, including parts of Poland, Austria-Hungary and Czechoslovakia.  In far eastern Europe they could have installed a puppet dictator much like Stalin did with the communist GDR.

[comrade_daelin]

In reality, Germany (or the Axis, however you like it) lost the war because, simply, the war occured in the first place.

If you look at Hitler's original pre-war goals, the objective was to create an army and steamroll his enemies in the late 40s, far ahead of the declaration of war by Britain in 1939. In fact, Hitler miscalculated that the Allies would let him off like previously in his takeovers of Eastern European countries. Hitler's pretext for taking Poland was reclaimation of German territoriy (whether lost from WW1 or Lebensraum). Put it simply, Hitler was pushing people around and they pushed back, and Hitler had to walk the walk.

Germany had to throttle its war capability after that, indeed the Blitzkrieg tactics were in reality relatively impromptu tactics by Hitler's generals in order to pull off success, as prolonged conflict was realized as the fatal blow for Germany. Originally, fighting France and Britain were merely secondary concerns for Hitler, because Lebensraum goals were in the East. Germany would fight its old Great War rivals either only when it needs to or in its own terms. Since it was the former, Germany had to take them out less they interfere with taking out Russia.

Once the West was put in order, Hitler accelerated his plans to destroying the Soviet Union, opening a second front before the war with Britain was given closure. His declaration of war on the US is arguably the worst thing he could do in his dire situation; the fact that the Americans were not declaring war over continuously attacking their supply fleets to Britain would be a miracle for someone in Hitler's position, that of precarious economic strain and the only hope for military victory was swift conquest of enemy territories and sudden annihilation of their armies.

Germany had no chance to winning WW2 because it was not the kind of war they wanted to fight. I think its amazing that the Wehrmacht managed to achieve what it did under its circumstances. Unfortunately an impatient and possessive dictator can really ruin the day.

[Jono]

Hitler should have invaded Eastern Europe under the premise of defeating communism.

Hiltler tried but poland was in the way and when he tried to get out of the way france and britan attacked

[comrade_daelin]

That can be one reason Hitler would have made. However Hitler had by the time of the Polish Invasion demanded land concesions, especially that of Danzig and East Prussia, making an aggressive case for invasion. That spurred Britain and France to state that if Germany takes action against Poland, its war with them as well. Hitler ignored the warnings.

ANy pretense of defeating communism would not bear any weight thanks to Hitler's diplomatic decorum. Would you let a large, militarized neighbour march through your lands to fight another enemy on the opposite border?

[2LTAndeh]

Im getting the vibe that we're trying to answer the question "How the Germans could have won" rather than why they lost. Anyway back to the original question, alot of valid points have been brought up but I'd like to elaborate on a few. The first would be logistics. Germany never had the logistic capability of the United States or the UK, not by a long shot. The blitzkrieg of the Soviet Union is a perfect example of this. To really go into this, you have to understand the history behind the "Blitz."

During the days of Fredrick the Great, Prussia was surrounded by nation states that wanted Prussia gone. These states could afford a long war because they had the production capability and raw resources, Prussia could not and thus Prussian military doctrine evolved into grand, swift maneuvers that sought a quick and decisive victory. This kind of warfare was well suited for continental Europe where nations were essentially shoulder to shoulder and nations such as Prussia could logistically afford quick, sweeping military operations. Blitzkrieg, as it was in WWII, was simply a result of this Prussian way of war. The advent of the tank and aircraft allowed what German military tacticians had always dreamed of and Guderian was able to use this new tools to great effect.

As stated before, this kind of warfare was suited to a kind of war in which distance wasnt an issue. When the Germans invaded Russia, all the flaws of Blitzkrieg were shown in full. The panzers were days ahead of the infantry and the Wehermacht's primary logistic resource, the horse, couldnt keep up. Still, the outstanding successes of 1941 seemed to confirm for German High Command that Russia would capitulate in the estimated time of eight weeks. When winter hit however, supplies slowed to a crawl and in 1942 the Blitzkrieg came to a hault. Weather had a huge impact on the Germans, their supplies couldnt get to the front in the quantity needed, the lines were overstretched and the Soviets had started to learn the lessons of Blitzkrieg.

Anyway, how the Germans FOUGHT was one of the defining factors in their losing the war. There are also a million other reasons; over-confidence; lack of knowledge of the terrain in the east; massive partisan movements in the Balkans; and of course Hitler declaring war on the US. Alot of people seem to say that the war was won in the East but really without the US I doubt that the Soviets could have beat the Germans back with the entire Wehrmacht thrown at them. The US was the hammer and the Soviets the anvil. Anyway, I hope this was coherent enough to shed some light on how the Germans lost as I'm rather tired since its 4AM here.

[BurroDiablo]

Alot of people seem to say that the war was won in the East but really without the US I doubt that the Soviets could have beat the Germans back with the entire Wehrmacht thrown at them. The US was the hammer and the Soviets the anvil.

It depends. The Germans would still have suffered from troubles during Operation Barbarossa, possibly more if they had used the entire Wehrmacht (more vehicles in Winter = more mud, more shit getting stuck, more people dying from starvation, more people freezing, more disease... we haven't even took bullets into consideration yet).
The Eastern Front would have still become a quagmire stalemate outside Moscow, but HAD the US not intervened and HAD the Germans managed to conquer North Africa, the Germans would now have had the perfect flank to attack the Soviets from the South, possibly cutting off their fuel supply, but they would need to fight for it first.
However, this theatre would have come to a conclusion earlier than irl, with a clear German victory, with copious amounts of fuel, but not yet with the heavy tanks they needed. This would have meant any offensive would either have to have been stalled OR they could have taken their chances and attacked the Soviets anyway to try and wipe out their fuel supples in Caucasus then move up and reinforce the offensive at Stalingrad.

I'm going to stop now because its becoming too speculative.

Its worth remembering that the Soviet Union had over twice the population of the German Reich. The Soviets would utilise both sexes in the Red Army and that gave them a distinct manpower advantage. So even without the US in the way, and even with all their forces focussed on one front, the Germans would have had one HELL of a time trying to overcome the Soviets.