Can you do better than Adolf?

That sounds like an interesting book. I have seen it quoted the Britain alone (not sure if that includes India, Canada and Australia) out-produced Germany during the war in every category of military equipment except machine-guns and submarines…

…given that fact I don’t know how Germany ever expected to win against Russia and the United States.

Got there in the end !

CD If you are interested in the statistics of WW2, as I believe you are then, David Edgerton’s book is for you; Britain’s War Machine. Contains every imaginable statistic on military equipment manufacture and supply, food production and energy supply. Explodes many myths not the least being that the USA was the principal supplier.

Much better – more readable than Barnett’s Audit of War.

If I had to be Adolf then I think I just try and lose a bit more gracefully…

…no extermination camps, no gas chambers, no Holocaust, no slave labour, no prisoner executions, in fact, no executions of any kind, because, let’s face it, against the Soviet Union, the British Empire / Dominions and the United States, Germany was never going to win the war!

From a military perspective the annexing / invasion of Czechoslovakia, the invasion of Poland, France, Holland, Belgium, Denmark and Norway were faultless so I don’t think I could improve on those…

…as for Britain, after Dunkirk, I’d have just ignored it: no Battle-of-Britain, no Blitz, no U-Boats, no Battle-of-the-Atlantic; the resources saved would have been redeployed for the attack on the Soviet Union (if I’d had still been convinced it was a good idea)!

Of course, Britain would still be at war with Germany but ‘D-Day’ would probably be years away and Britain would be limited to a, not very effective, bombing campaign.

I wouldn’t declare war on the United States even assuming the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor happens?

I wouldn’t send any troops to back-up the Italians; the Italian dream of an empire in North Africa would just have to be crushed by the British. I would convince Italy into a purely defensive war to protect Italy itself and to supply troops and industrial capacity (making superior German weapons) for the war against the Soviet Union. No German troops for Greece or Yugoslavia.

All German (Italian, French, Czechoslovak) industrial capacity would be harnessed for war production, utilising all available labour (including women); military equipment would be ruthlessly standardised. There would be fewer types of tanks, trucks and other vehicles, fewer types of aircraft and fewer calibres of weapons.

The Panzer III and IV were too close in specification and their roles could have been served by a single composite type. The Czech tanks, 38T and 35T, were a useful addition to the Wehrmacht but introduced another type to add to the logistical problems (although from an established industrial base); German designs would be substituted as early as possible.

Standardisation would extend to every conceivable interchangeable part. There would be one truck design within each weight class, irrespective of manufacturer; one engine, one gearbox, one rear axle, one tyre size, one interchangeable wheel type.

All this would hopefully deliver more of each piece of equipment and reduce the logistical workload considerably thus improving the supply situation.

And then unleash the Wehrmacht to the East!

If Adolf as per my suggestion was prepared to fight a different war – different priorities – then who knows, the German economy, especially if Speer had been brought into the picture earlier, might have risen to the numbers I’ve written about or even better.

I’ve suggested one enemy at a time. If nothing else this would have brought to bear a concentration of military force and therefore supply. A battleplan that all strategists always agree upon.

Any imaginative idea such as the one under discussion has to be restrained. It has to be subject to all the constraints prevalent at the time.

I know, but even in a ‘what if’ scenario you have to stay firmly grounded to what was possible with the available resources; even if ‘my’ Germany could build 10,000 tanks, 100,000 half-tracks and 250,000 trucks for the invasion of Russia in 1941 (which it couldn’t)…

…where would I find the fuel for them all?

You’re still not in the spirit of things CD – you’re supposed to be Adolf ! We KNOW what the reality was, the OP, I think wants a fresh take on the subject.

A fleet of 500 transport aircraft each capable of carrying 2 tons of supplies with a further 250 such aircraft in reserve will be the main carrier supplemented by road and rail transport and shipping routes along the Baltic.

I think the Luftwaffe had about the number of aircraft when they attempted to supply the Sixth Army trapped in Stalingrad; the minimum requirement for about 260,000 troops (on starvation rations with the soldiers eating their draught animals) was 300 tons a day.

As we all know, the airlift failed miserably so I think you’re going to need more aircraft than that to supply 120 ‘mixed panzer and infantry’ divisions! The Wehrmacht was, contrary to popular myth, mainly horse-drawn, Germany did not, and could not, produce enough trucks and the Russian roads are very bad (impassable for months in Winter / Spring) so you’ll have to rely on the railways (different gauge in Russia!) as sea-routes don’t exist into central Russia (well, not under German control).

I fear you may well have to postpone Barbarossa for a good few years. The problem is that in those years the Soviet Union will only get stronger; many more T-34 tanks and a rebuilding of the purged officer class!

[/UMPIRE MODE] 🙂

If I was to do his work instead of him then there would be no more mister nice guy…………

In good old Nazi tradition do all that then persecute them afterwards.

But you are mad so you couldn’t stop yourself!!;)

Great idea but a minor flaw. You couldn’t not persecute the Jews!;)

In good old Nazi tradition do all that then persecute them afterwards.

Your juxtoposition has become juxtoposed!

No, I know!

What we need is some sort of umpire…..not that I’m volunteering for the job!

As Fuhrer, I am in control of a ‘command economy’ which means that I can organise in any way that suits my needs. Eg,

Russia has cold winters. My army will have available suitable winter clothing including white camouflage. My quartermasters will submit their estimates in respect of food, forage, ammunition, weapon replacement, and medical supplies including field hospitals and mobile workshops enough to supply and maintain 120 mixed panzer and infantry divisions.

A fleet of 500 transport aircraft each capable of carrying 2 tons of supplies with a further 250 such aircraft in reserve will be the main carrier supplemented by road and rail transport and shipping routes along the Baltic.

If there is a shortfall in any of the supply criteria then Barbarossa will be postponed until the deficiencies are made good.

In my scenario, I’m sensible and knowledgeable enough to know that much of the population of Soviet Russia, especially the Ukraine were not well disposed towards the Communist regime so, why antagonise them further by ill treating them when with a little extra effort I can get them onside and eventually fighting alongside my army ?

So, if we connect with the point that you make, I have to make adequate provision for supplying the Wehrmacht, which of course means that I don’t rely on Goering, instead putting together a workable and reliable supply train.

But as we’ve already noted the Nazi economy had no way of providing such supply without plundering other territories. So whilst your thoughts are indeed innovative they require a different regime in power prior to 1938 to be enacted. The starting point is 1938, if you can get a functioning economy in place in the next 2 to 3 years to support your logistical requirements you should be running for lifelong President of the World. 😉

Very true; the Nazi ‘economic miracle’ was really a vast confidence trick. Full employment, vast government spending on all that infrastructure (autobahns) and the military, was all paid-for by vast borrowing; without war, and the plundering of other countries’s resources, the whole Nazi house-of-cards would have collapsed before 1943. War was inevitable but I’m not sure how ‘taking on’ the United States would have ‘sustained’ Nazi Germany?

You’ve answered your question yourself in the prior words. In the sense that continual war was required to sustain the regime. I’ll agree that the US wouldn’t necessarily have been the next stop as there was plenty of Africa and Asia left but assuming that all went hunky dory at some point the only other area and one that would at some point have objected to German dominance was the US.

CD

Your juxtoposition has become juxtoposed !

The OP asked: “Can you do better than Adolf? “

All who have responded, have responded in that light. We, all of us know what actually happened at the time, the challenge was to assume the mantle of the invader and concoct a different scenario.

In my scenario, I’m sensible and knowledgeable enough to know that much of the population of Soviet Russia, especially the Ukraine were not well disposed towards the Communist regime so, why antagonise them further by ill treating them when with a little extra effort I can get them onside and eventually fighting alongside my army ?

So, if we connect with the point that you make, I have to make adequate provision for supplying the Wehrmacht, which of course means that I don’t rely on Goering, instead putting together a workable and reliable supply train.

The intention is to destroy Communist Russia and acquire land for expansion of the German empire in the East and additional manufacturing capacity. Above all, treat the native population well. Do not antagonize them. They are our friends…

It would be absolutely impossible for the Wehrmacht to ‘treat the native population well’ since the invading soldiers needed to steal all the food the native population had to feed themselves! This wasn’t accidental, nor was it something that happened later on when supplies ran low, it was fundamental to the basic planning of the invasion of the Soviet Union; the name of this planned atrocity was the ‘hunger plan’ and it is well worth looking it up if you have never heard of it.

It was also one of the main reasons for the spectacular success of the invasion of the Soviet Union; the invading armies were not encumbered by the sort of logistical train that other modern armies were forced to maintain. It did of course mean that some ten million, mainly Ukrainian, civilians were condemned to certain death by the ordinary soldiery of the Wehrmacht but that conveniently solved another of their problems, what to do with those already native to their ‘living space’ and was a price they were clearly willing to extract for their ‘lebensraum’!

Given that there wasn’t much in the way of real economy or substance behind the Nazi regime and it’s “progress” you’d have to think that the regime would have to take on the US to sustain itself.

Very true; the Nazi ‘economic miracle’ was really a vast confidence trick. Full employment, vast government spending on all that infrastructure (autobahns) and the military, was all paid-for by vast borrowing; without war, and the plundering of other countries’s resources, the whole Nazi house-of-cards would have collapsed before 1943. War was inevitable but I’m not sure how ‘taking on’ the United States would have ‘sustained’ Nazi Germany?

Great idea but a minor flaw. You couldn’t not persecute the Jews!;)

Don’t persecute the Jews. Start your own Manhattan project (Jewish scientists). Get nuclear weapons.
Invest in Jet and Rocket technology.
Boom!

Following Beermat’s scenario you have to wonder if Europe and some bits of Asia and Africa would have been enough. Or might he have pressed on with atomic research inb order to visit a Hiroshima and Nagasaki on an unsuspecting US, smug, dumb and happy in its isolationism?

Moggy

Given that there wasn’t much in the way of real economy or substance behind the Nazi regime and it’s “progress” you’d have to think that the regime would have to take on the US to sustain itself.