Inside The SS (Nat Geo)

[prepare]

Where can I watch this?

[Det-Sog]

Der Führer lost his focus and came out of his role, thus ****ing things up to a galactic degree. If he would’ve just given direction to the generals and let them deal with the strategy and logistics, we’d all be speaking German now as we live under the Man in the High Castle.

We still would have developed the bomb first. Maybe not in time from keeping the reich out of London, but we'd have been able to keep them out of North America. The Cold War wouldn't be with the "former" USSR, but the reich. Japan would have still folded eventually. China would end up being the wild card. The reich would occupy most of the east, while North America would be allied and intact.

Agreed on one thing though. Hitler was BSC. Had he listened to his advisors, things would have needed up A LOT differently. Besides making his troops carry bolt action rifles, he made the designers focus on and build bombers instead of offensive and defensive fighter planes. Had he went with fighters instead, we may have never gotten air superiority. The bombing raids that brought the German industrial machine to it's knees never would have happened... THINK... The ME-262 could have been mass produced and brought on line a year or two earlier... Hitler nixed that idea...

[crusader377]

Good discussion but I think many people over-emphasize German Military Capabilities. Bottom line Germany effectively lost any opportunity of winning the war in June 22, 1941 with the invasion of the Soviet Union. Russia was simply too big of an opponent to beat. Furthermore with Hitler declaring war on the United States on December 8, 1941 guaranteed that Germany would be defeated. Germany simply didn't have the manufacturing capacity or size to deal with the Soviet Union let alone the United States.

Wonder weapons like the Me-262 would have made no difference in the larger war simply because the U.S. would have rushed into service the P-80 which was being tested as early as 1943. The Germans had the habit of deploying very innovative weapons that weren't really sorted out operationally. Yes the Me-262 was cool but it wasn't reliable nor was it a serious operational weapon. The United States actually built better equipment overall for the warfighter than the Germans did.

Back to the Waffen SS it was a complete waste of time. The Germans would have been better off using the resources in building up their regular German Army. The whole reputation of the Waffen SS was built largely on the reputation of perhaps a half a dozen divisions which were lavishly equipped and had the pick of the best personnel Germany had to offer, ( 1st SS, 2nd SS, 3rd SS, 5th SS, and perhaps 9, 10, and 12 SS). The rest of their nearly 40 divisions were crap. 1st, 2nd, and 3rd SS often had 150-200 tanks in their TOE from 1943 onward while a standard German Panzer Division normally was operating with 75-100 tanks during that time period with few exceptions.

[TexHill]

We still would have developed the bomb first. Maybe not in time from keeping the reich out of London, but we'd have been able to keep them out of North America. The Cold War wouldn't be with the "former" USSR, but the reich. Japan would have still folded eventually. China would end up being the wild card. The reich would occupy most of the east, while North America would be allied and intact.

Agreed on one thing though. Hitler was BSC. Had he listened to his advisors, things would have needed up A LOT differently. Besides making his troops carry bolt action rifles, he made the designers focus on and build bombers instead of offensive and defensive fighter planes. Had he went with fighters instead, we may have never gotten air superiority. The bombing raids that brought the German industrial machine to it's knees never would have happened... THINK... The ME-262 could have been mass produced and brought on line a year or two earlier... Hitler nixed that idea...

Respectfully, your scenario would not have happened. Germany just simply didn't have the population to prosecute a large scale conflict across multiple countries and over a long time period. Technology is great when it works, but it doesn't replace soldiers in the field, and you must have soldiers in the field if you want to hold territory. Germany tried to offset their personnel shortages with forced conscription from conquered countries with dismal results. Germany had the highest desertion rate during the war because they relied on foreign conscripts to offset their personnel needs. Germany was doomed the moment they invaded Poland which caused France and G.B. to declare war.

As Americans we like to think that the war in Europe would have been lost if we had not gotten involved militarily, and this couldn't be further from the truth. The Soviets would have crushed Germany without our help. It would have just taken a little longer.

[crusader377]

Also "prestige symbols" like Bismarck, Tirpitz, Scharnhorst and Gneisenau whose steel would have been better invested in a gazillion more U-boats and especially in counter-ASW capabilities. Not to mention the ludicrous insistence that even heavy bombers had to be dive bombers *stares pointedly at Heinkel He177 Greif*, or the lack of a properly built maritime patrol aircraft rather than the converted FW200 Kurier long-range airliner whose understrength structures regularly broke their backs on landing, among other catastrophic failures to the point that of hundreds built the maximum available strength at any single time was two dozen aircraft to cover the entire Atlantic and Mediterranean.

Sorry, guys, WWII's kinda my thing, though mainly between naval and air battles and the Southwest Pacific theater.

Very true. The prestige ships were largely pointless. Sure the brand new Bismarck sank the Hood (a capable yet un-modernized WW1 design ship) but it turn was sank a week latter by a British taskforce consisting of the HMS KGV and HMS Rodney. Tirpitz sat in port the whole war until it was sank by British bombers. Largely the same with Gneisenau. Scharnhost sank some merchant ships and an outdated small British Carrier but it also was sank by the HMS Duke of York in an Artic sea battle.

The 150,000 plus tons of high grade steel alone and $660 Million Reichmarks cost would have been enough to build 7000 additional Panzer IV tanks which were actually operationally reliable.

[Firefly]

America. Coca Cola, sometimes war.

[jpmuscle]

I just want to lament the fact that Man in The High Castle pulled a GoT season 8 and I’m still mad af about it.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[Firefly]

I just want to lament the fact that Man in The High Castle pulled a GoT season 8 and I’m still mad af about it.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Remember what they took from you

[jsbhike]

It's interesting that many of their most successful units were primarily from other than Germany.

I have heard from a few sources that stemmed from the Nazi's offering a better deal on issues such as property rights (assuming you weren't someone the Nazi's had the red ass against) than the .gov they lived under pre-invasion and/or/similar note hating communists which I recall was a primary drive for Larry Thorne(Lauri Törni) Firefly mentioned.

[WillBrink]

Respectfully, your scenario would not have happened. Germany just simply didn't have the population to prosecute a large scale conflict across multiple countries and over a long time period. Technology is great when it works, but it doesn't replace soldiers in the field, and you must have soldiers in the field if you want to hold territory. Germany tried to offset their personnel shortages with forced conscription from conquered countries with dismal results. Germany had the highest desertion rate during the war because they relied on foreign conscripts to offset their personnel needs. Germany was doomed the moment they invaded Poland which caused France and G.B. to declare war.

As Americans we like to think that the war in Europe would have been lost if we had not gotten involved militarily, and this couldn't be further from the truth. The Soviets would have crushed Germany without our help. It would have just taken a little longer.

I don't fully agree. With our keeping the German's busy, and the Lend Lease Program which literally saved the Soviets ass (1), I don't think it would have taken a little longer, but a lot longer, and the additional deaths of untold millions. Due to the shear size and population, and our help, no doubt the Soviets would have worn the German's down by attrition via guerilla warfare and such, but I tend to think it could have been years.

https://www.rbth.com/defence/2016/03...st-hour_575559

Had Hitler honored his non aggression agreement with the Soviets, taken Europe, then offered the Soviets a seat at the table and been able to utilized their resources to his full advantage, history could be quite different as interesting "what if" history I think about. Without the Soviets, Germany was doomed sooner or later to be sure. Even stranger "what if" history, what if the UK had sided with Hitler as he'd actually expected them to?