Inside The SS (Nat Geo)

[SteyrAUG]

The SS had pretty uniforms and looked futuristic but at the end of the day they were a political group.

For that you can thank Hugo Boss, not joking. On Netflix I watched "The Devil Next Door" and was stunned by how flawed everything is when they go after these guys.

[Diamondback]

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 warn 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?

The other thing is, even if Hitler had honored Molotov-Ribbentrop, eventually Stalin WOULDN'T. A regular two-peas-in-a-pod situation between them, each making plans to double-cross the other before even putting ink to paper.

[WillBrink]

Where can I watch this?

The links in the OP and the titles of the thread may be a hint...

[WillBrink]

The other thing is, even if Hitler had honored Molotov-Ribbentrop, eventually Stalin WOULDN'T. A regular two-peas-in-a-pod situation between them, each making plans to double-cross the other before even putting ink to paper.

Psychopaths gonna Psychopath not doubt, but depending on how things played out, it may have been an "the enemy of my enemy is my friend" agreement as long as it suited them to do so, as we did with the commies. Apparently, Stalin refused to be believe Hitler was attacking them - greatly slowing down their response time - so he must have felt assured Hitler was going to keep up his end of the agreement, at least for far longer than he did.

[SteyrAUG]

Psychopaths gonna Psychopath not doubt, but depending on how things played out, it may have been an "the enemy of my enemy is my friend" agreement as long as it suited them to do so, as we did with the commies. Apparently, Stalin refused to be believe Hitler was attacking them - greatly slowing down their response time - so he must have felt assured Hitler was going to keep up his end of the agreement, at least for far longer than he did.

It really didn't matter who felt what way about who. If the Germans didn't surrender when they did, Little Boy would have been tested in Berlin. That is why it was specifically created. When the Germans surrenders, even some people involved in the creation of the atomic bomb objected to it's use on Japan. A lot of those physicists created the bomb to use on Germany and Germany only.

So people who say "what if" regarding Me262s, Stg45s, V2 rockets and other wonder weapons are all missing the fact that any technological superiority, even one that allows Hitler to defeat Stalin and occupy Russia are forgetting that all roads lead to an Atomic Berlin.

If the war dragged out past 1945, most likely Germany would have still fallen to the sheer number of soldiers and tanks Stalin had at his disposal and his willingness to see them all as disposable and replaceable. The only thing that really changes is Stalin ending up with a lot more of Europe than what was agreed upon at Yalta. But if for some reason Stalin is unable to take Germany, then that is where the first US atomic weapon will be used against enemy forces.

Ironically, if we did use atomic weapons on Berlin and other cities in Germany, that might have shocked Japan into surrender as they would have had a different perspective of what the US was willing to do, while they still had time to prevent such a bomb from being used in Tokyo and potentially killing the Emperor.

Germany got very lucky they quit before they became the testing ground. Japan is very, very lucky we dropped two bombs on them and spared them an invasion of the home islands. The destruction at Hiroshima and Nagasaki are almost negligible compared to what would have happened if we invaded Kyushu and Honshu, especially given that Stalin was poised to invade Hokkaido.

It would have costs us dearly in casualties, but we'd have inflicted horror the likes of which the Japanese had never seen and they'd pay in a 10 of theirs for every one of ours kind of way. We would have been forced to destroy almost the entire population of Japan. They got off light.

[Budget]

That is very good point on the A bombs and invasion. Look to Okinawa how the civilian population was just cliff diving onto rocks. I'd imagine, if homeland invasion took place, that everyone capable of holding a gun/grenade/etc. would be given one. Defending an island vs defending The Emporer, who was a deity, would have cost an insane amount of death and destruction.

The other thing about the A bombs, they didn't do the destruction that conventional bombs did, nor the fire bombing of Tokyo. Plus, they were on team Nazi. Plus they committed horrendous wartime atrocities against both soldiers and civs. There was literally no one they wouldn't torture. Unpopular opinion in today's age but F Japan, they earned what they got. I am happy both Germany and Japan rebuilt however, I just wish they were so left.

[Firefly]

That is very good point on the A bombs and invasion. Look to Okinawa how the civilian population was just cliff diving onto rocks. I'd imagine, if homeland invasion took place, that everyone capable of holding a gun/grenade/etc. would be given one. Defending an island vs defending The Emporer, who was a deity, would have cost an insane amount of death and destruction.

The other thing about the A bombs, they didn't do the destruction that conventional bombs did, nor the fire bombing of Tokyo. Plus, they were on team Nazi. Plus they committed horrendous wartime atrocities against both soldiers and civs. There was literally no one they wouldn't torture. Unpopular opinion in today's age but F Japan, they earned what they got. I am happy both Germany and Japan rebuilt however, I just wish they were so left.

To a point, I kinda agree but then again....

HK416s and Anime, yo.

[SteyrAUG]

That is very good point on the A bombs and invasion. Look to Okinawa how the civilian population was just cliff diving onto rocks. I'd imagine, if homeland invasion took place, that everyone capable of holding a gun/grenade/etc. would be given one. Defending an island vs defending The Emporer, who was a deity, would have cost an insane amount of death and destruction.

The other thing about the A bombs, they didn't do the destruction that conventional bombs did, nor the fire bombing of Tokyo. Plus, they were on team Nazi. Plus they committed horrendous wartime atrocities against both soldiers and civs. There was literally no one they wouldn't torture. Unpopular opinion in today's age but F Japan, they earned what they got. I am happy both Germany and Japan rebuilt however, I just wish they were so left.

It isn't a matter of being more destructive, you are absolutely correct about the firebombing of Tokyo taking more lives and causing more damage, it's the idea of the unknown. Had we bombed Berlin, nobody would have had a real understanding of it's capability, hell we barely understood what we were actually dealing with and we built it. Fear of the unknown and fear that we might be able to kill the emperor with one superbomb "might" have been enough. But we obviously can't say because many in Japan were willing to literally fight to the last man.

But fear of the bomb and our demonstrated willingness to use it kept Stalin out of Hokkaido. It's hard to say what the implications might have been if we used it in Berlin first.