"Jodl, Jodl, why has noone sent me any valentine's cards? Does everyone hate me?"
"It's okay mein Fuhrer, I love you, and that's all that matters!"
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"Jodl, Jodl, why has noone sent me any valentine's cards? Does everyone hate me?"
"It's okay mein Fuhrer, I love you, and that's all that matters!"
I disagree. The trade embargoes alone had an extreme effect on the outcome.
Find me one public poll indicating that the american public would have preferred the Nazis win the war.
I tend to agree.
No one, no one, foresaw the depths of depravity to which National Socialism would sink. But the brutal, thuggish, well-documented attrocities commited during their rise gave anyone with a pair of eyes pause. And of course you have idiots like the King of England and his . . . woman . . . more than willing to acknowledge and accept the Nazis into the realm of nations before the British wisely forced the abdication and exiled them to the most remote backwater possible.
England, foolishly, went out of its way to appease Hitler, thinking some reasonable adjustments to the peace treaties would ensure no escalation of hostilities. However, this gave them tremendous positive cache for diplomatic spin, which they milked very successfully, when events on the battlefield made it overwhelmingly apparent Hitler would not be happy until he had Europe on a leash.
You are not necessarily wrong, but there are issues.
Where you hit the nail on the head is suggesting 'Evil' is in the eye of the beholder. All you have to do is look at a country like Argentina, who declared war on Germany at the very last minute to be on the right side of history, but opened the doors wide to import every Nazi bastard the Roman Catholic Church could import through the Ratlines. And unbelievably today, it is not hard to look around and find people who adamantly believe Hitler was the greatest human being that ever lived.
The problem with this statement is there is no clear, distinct dilenation of the time frames involved and you are shading legitimate facts to prove your point. For example, your Roosevelt comment is only partially true; the Americans were not adamant against fighting Naziism, the Americans didn't want to send their sons to solve Europe's problems for them. Again. America First. Roosevelt called the American Isoltionists 'shrimps', because they had a nerve cord but no brain; and FDR's willingness to oppose Nazi Germany 'indirectly', whether it was Constitutional and Legal or not, is well documented.
Nothing is evil in the beginning, it is a process of evolution to move from inception into pure, black, evil. And, National Socialism followed that path from a 'benevolent' power seeking to force Germany back into its proper position within Europe to plunging Europe into a Hell we cannot fully discuss here.
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Did the American public know about Trump before the 2016 campaign exposure? I didn't. Same with Weinstein and Louis CK. No clue until it hit. Was there a sizeable group who did? Sure. Did the information already exist? Sure seems it did, just wasn't in my purview.
Did the American public know about the holocaust? My argument is that no, most did not, even if it was an open secret in Germany, even if the Rose McGowan analogous jews screaming atrocity were there, by and large people were not aware.
My argument (to loop back) is a Germany not havings its work camps exposed as death camps because of no or at least delayed war with the USSR is not going to be known for a holocaust much like Trump without a POTUS race probably never sees public notice. Likewise, if holocaust exposure comes from soviet trucebreaking aggression, I assume a lot more apprehension by the masses.
You note that people are stubborn today. My tldr point is people were just as stubborn in the early '40s, and with a fraction of the access to information we have as well. Weinstein in 2015 wasn't known for rape and Hitler in 1941 wasn't known for the holocaust.
This thread is about if Germany could have won WW2 by other means or not. Mine and many others argument is they can only win if they can diplomatically end things with the Anglo world. The reputation of Hitler and Germany decide this. The holocaust being exposed would kill any hope of Germany victory.
Yes, it takes steps to get here, but this is a logical side discussion in an appropriate thread.
Even supposing that the American public remains blissfully ignorant, that doesn't change the fact that the American foreign policy makers were not ignorant. In fact, FDR was strongly anti-Nazi and pro-British years before the war even began. All the things set into motion before the summer of 1941 aren't going to stop just because the Germans are invading Turkey instead of Ukraine. You are still going to have economic support, still going to have volunteer pilots training with American oil in Canada, still going to have the American navy protecting American ships against German submarines. The Soviets losing lend-lease would matter far less then them gaining another two years to prepare and avoiding all the losses of 1941. There is simply no question that it's going to be the red flag flying over Berlin by 1945. The only question is what flag is flying above Paris and Madrid.
And there is a distinct possibility that the Americans would declare war on the Germans before the Soviets would. Germany entered into an alliance against the US for a reason, they knew that war was going to happen sooner or later anyways. If the US declares war before the Soviets do, jingoism throws every anti-German argument out the window.
People may have had less information but they also had the balls to call open lies propoganda so I would say in the balance it's point in favor of the 1940s.
The American Government won't DoW until attacked. Period. There will be no Lusitania. This is the specific rationale behind FDR leaving Pearl Harbor exposed despite having awareness of an imminent Japanese attack from multiple intel sources. And Japan will not turn their back on Russia unless they are occupied elsewhere. Hitler starts that war, against Karl Haushofer's great wet dream of a Pan-Asiatic German/Russian/Japanese alliance, or it doesn't happen at all.
This will not stop FDR and Wild Bill Donovan handing William Stephenson every asset America possesses out the back door, short of military intervention, on Britain's behalf in the meantime.
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Seconded.
We dismissed the paradrop into Cornwall about 19 pages back. Kind of hard to claim off topic at this point.
The USA gave so much support to GB that the Germans essentially called their DOW against us a formality; we were already fighting. I am not arguing this changes short term (except maybe going up) if Germany avoids war with the USSR.
This is a night and day different situation than overt support to the Soviets. We can support them because their survival is key to the defeat of the Axis powers who attacked the USA. Can we still support them when they are the aggressor? In my opinion: not a chance in hell, the USSR would get nothing from us (or at least for free or credit).
Now, back at it, what about Germany who has not declared war on the USA, is publicly asking to make terms, and is under invasion from the USSR that threatens to hang those red flags across Europe? At this point, I do think it makes sense to now reconsider US position and argue that Germany could, hypothetically, be in a position to get the allies to agree to terms in the interest of a free if slightly rump France, Belgium, etc as far preferable to a red Europe.
1944 is an election year and if FDR continues his anti fascist efforts even if Germany was the defender against Soviet invasion in mid 1943, lost ground, and never declared on us? The GOP will absolutely go to town smearing FDR as a communist who helped give Europe to the Russians etc etc etc. These are pre-LBJ democrats here; they are one good (sitting) president's disgrace away from moral bankruptcy and collapse. FDR may hate fascists (much to his credit) but he still has to deal with political reality if Stalin goes berserk before he dies.
Meanwhile I still do not think the USSR would first strike Germany. I am convinced that if Hitler refrains from starting a war with the USSR, they won't end up at war with them at all.
Yes they will. The draft wasn't for show. Building aircraft carriers and battleships wasn't to fight submarines.
What?
There is zero chance Stalin attacks Germany without UK/US support. That would be suicidal. This scenario you're imagining is a fantastic one.
You are correct, sooner or later they're coming in. One can easily document FDR loading the American Gun in far greater detail than that. You have George Marshal lying under oath to the Senate there are no war plans on the table; while his staff is simoultaneously developing mobilization and extended war plan projections.
We should open a thread on SOE and FDR, whether or not it was treason or common frigging sense to act in the matter as Roosevelt did. I vote for common sense, and for standing up to all esoteric madmen with evil intent.
(Sounds like a job for @Fire_Unionist. 'Intrepid' needs to be in the title. Feel free to compare and contrast him with Heydrich. Encompass the transition from SOE to OSS to CIA. Make the question worth pondering.)
But, Roosevelt won't pull the trigger on his DoW until he has firm provocation. He must be seen as the defender, an innocent wronged, to pull 'America' writ large in behind him. Events transpired to make this happen. America perceived Pearl Harbor to be the greatest act of betrayal in human history since Judas kissed Jesus in the Garden. And America has seen herself as the world's policeman since; for better or worse.
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Yerm has repeatedly said he does not think Russia would attack the West before, during, or after WWII. And he repeats it again at the end of this message.
Just saying.
So what's the point of the scenario in his post then? Why would the Soviets be considered aggressors if they're not the ones who have aggressed?
I'm not speaking for him, but I think to show the ridiculous nature of the theoretical scenarios under which Russia would attack first.
Alternative theory: Going to war would not be in America's interest for another year. The first American combat units weren't able to make it into combat in Europe until Operation Torch. Surely the US doesn't gain in Europe by declaring war when it can't attack but German submarines can hit the American coast. There were a million tons of supplies waiting to be shipped to the Philippines when the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor. In another six months of peace, the Philippines would have been a stronghold that the Japanese couldn't hope to crack. Surely the US doesn't gain by declaring war before that happens. Roosevelt could have probably turned many pretexts into war if the time was right.
I think the logical time for the US to move to formal war with Germany would be around October or November of 1942. Supposing the US declared war in late 1942 or early 1943, the American public would welcome a Soviet invasion of Turkey, Romania and Poland the next summer.
Very logical.
But as you pointed out earlier, Roosevelt wanted in the war ASAP because things looked very dire for the Allies in December of 1941. And if Japan triggering the Haushofer treaty got America to war against Hitler, so much the better.
An oil embargo on Japan was an indirect declaration of war. Mobilizing on the home front while standing down on the front lines is an old American trick; Lincoln showed the wisdom and the value to history of allowing the other guy first blood.
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That's not the lesson I draw. The confederate army was primarily armed with weapons from federal arsenals. When the south started producing weapons later, it was with machinery from federal arsenals. If Lincoln had been in office and able to act soon enough to prevent that, the war would have been far shorter and less bloody. The lesson I draw from that is that getting sucker punched sucks eggs.
It is analogous to a gambit in chess, where you sacrifice something of value to put yourself in a superior strategic position.
Moral outrage over an unjustified attack is the backbone of American military might, going back to the Indians massacring a settler and rousing the entire county to take action while the cavalry rides over the hill. Or the Minutemen responding to another damned British invasion. It's in our national DNA.
To be fair name a war the US declared where someone didn' attack (or perceived to have) to happened the home soil or units abroad.
Giving the enemy a free first hit can be a great advantage.