What if Hitler...?

[gh0ti]

I'm not quite sure what you're getting at. Are you saying if Churchill wasn't around, we would never have gone to war with Germany? Because, that's just not true. When we declared war, Churchill was still more or less an exile. He didn't get welcomed back into high level politics until he was appointed First Lord of the Admiralty after war was declared.

We wouldn't have been able to make a successful campaign on Germany. Gladstone was known to be talking about "That nice man Adolf", and without Churchill's charisma, the War would have never have got off the ground. Before Churchill we were just saying "You bad man Hitler, stop doing that".

And I don't think that our troops were 'pitiful' in 1939 by any stretch of the imagination.

I'd take a look back then. Our airforce was atrocious, a fortnight before the Battle of Britain we simply didn't have the air-defences to hold off the Luftwaffe. If you look at "Dad's Army" that was our coastal defence at that point. A bunch of senior citizens.

In truth, we weren't really that far behind the Germans in many areas and were superior in some. The UK had been feverishly rearming since 1935 in response to German aggression and was actually a much more modern standing army than the Wehrmacht. The German army, for example, relied heavily on horse-power whilst the British had invested in almost complete mechanisation. And the gap of quality between Allied tanks and their fabled Panzer counterparts is seriously overestimated - it was how they were used that caused them to seem so superior. This was the real crux of the German success, that the Allies had yet to form coherent, up-to-date tactics for the use of combined arms in a war of mobility. Hence, Blitzkrieg was able to knock France out of the war in a matter of weeks.

And I beat all that with one stroke. The Channel.

And the Luftwaffe would have turned our standing army into pincushions. They had V2's as well.

I don't know which Gladstone you're talking about. The one most people mean died before Hitler was ten years old. Our airforce was not atrocious either - it inflicted heavy losses on the Luftwaffe during the battle of France, despite being heavily outnumbered. We further had our secret weapon - Radar, something that the Germans did not, which acted as an enormous force multiplier during the war. The Luftwaffe would also not have "turned our army into pincushions" - it was given that opportunity at Dunkirk, and failed spectacularly. Keep in mind that the key reason for Hitler calling off the proposed invasion of GB was that he could not get air superiority - the RAF was too strong. Further, V2s were not developed until way later in the war, and were, well, pretty rubbish. The damage they could inflict was minuscule in comparison to conventional bomber forces.

Another thing you overlook is the Royal Navy, which was at that point the strongest in the world, capable of matching the German Navy many times over. Other than the U-Boats, not one German capital ship saw action in the war without being sunk or heavily damaged.

And Dad's Army was not Britain's serious defence. It was a propaganda peace made to con the Germans into thinking that an invasion would be met not only with the full strength of the professional British army, but hundreds of thousands of armed militiamen. They were only drawn up to buy time to make good the loss of equipment the regular army abandoned in France. In short, on the dawn of war in 1939, Britain may have been behind, but her forces were most definitely not pitiful.

 

[The_root_of_all_evil]

I don't know which Gladstone you're talking about.

To be fair, that was an early morning typo, I meant Chamberlain.

Our airforce was not atrocious either - it inflicted heavy losses on the Luftwaffe during the battle of France, despite being heavily outnumbered.

However, it would have been far more outnumbered and outflew if the battle had gone south instead of north.

We further had our secret weapon - Radar, something that the Germans did not, which acted as an enormous force multiplier during the war.

Again, with no direct threat to Britain, the Enigma machine/RADAR were far more unlikely to have been created.

The Luftwaffe would also not have "turned our army into pincushions" - it was given that opportunity at Dunkirk, and failed spectacularly.

Tell the people of Coventry that. Or London.

Keep in mind that the key reason for Hitler calling off the proposed invasion of GB was that he could not get air superiority - the RAF was too strong.

Which it actually wasn't. Hitler had always had a fear and spoke of his fear of the English due to the Empire. Had he had better diplomats, England would have been likely to join him. There was already serious discussion on that point - and with Germany being invaded from both Russia and Poland, that may have tipped the balance.

Further, V2s were not developed until way later in the war, and were, well, pretty rubbish. The damage they could inflict was minuscule in comparison to conventional bomber forces.

But again, not against African targets.

Another thing you overlook is the Royal Navy, which was at that point the strongest in the world, capable of matching the German Navy many times over. Other than the U-Boats, not one German capital ship saw action in the war without being sunk or heavily damaged.

Yet still, the Normandy Landing annhilated a lot of our ground forces. Remember, we're talking about an England that entered the war around the same time that America did in this reality, without the massive build up beforehand.

And Dad's Army was not Britain's serious defence. It was a propaganda peace made to con the Germans into thinking that an invasion would be met not only with the full strength of the professional British army, but hundreds of thousands of armed militiamen. They were only drawn up to buy time to make good the loss of equipment the regular army abandoned in France. In short, on the dawn of war in 1939, Britain may have been behind, but her forces were most definitely not pitiful.

But here's the main point, in this reality war wasn't dawning in '39, because Poland hadn't been taken. All we would have had was scraps of evidence, it wasn't until the Invasion that the decision to mobilise was made. Without that evidence, England would be forced to stay back.
I'll bring up some facts on army strength later from a proper army historian, but I'm a little busy atm.

 

[gh0ti]

In a bid to keep this short, I'm not going to use the quoting function, so bear with me.

RADAR was developed before the war. Regardless of Germany, it still was created.

Coventry and London were hit hard, true, but it's one thing flattening a residential area in the dead of night and another destroying an army with air power. Because the Luftwaffe could not control the skies, they had to fly while it was dark to avoid British interceptors. If you look up the figures, you'll see that not only did the British fighters inflict heavier losses on the Germans, British industry was able to produce planes more quickly than the Germans could.

If Britain had entered the war in 1941 and not 1939, it would be Britain that would be better prepared (comparably) than Germany. As I said earlier, Britain had been rearming as early as 1935, by 1941 this rearmament would have been very far along and indeed in a better position to fight than they were in 1939. It was the fact that war was dawning in 1939 that led Britain to guarantee Polish independence - it was a last gasp attempt to show Hitler that he had gone too far.

"Yet still, the Normandy Landing annhilated a lot of our ground forces."

No, it didn't. The Normandy landings were a resounding success, casualties by far lower than anyone had anticipated. Only on Omaha beach were heavy losses taken, and in the grand scheme, even these were not particularly significant (3,000 killed).

"Which it actually wasn't. Hitler had always had a fear and spoke of his fear of the English due to the Empire. Had he had better diplomats, England would have been likely to join him."

I have never heard that Hitler spoke of his fear of Britain. He respected the British and probably did not want war with them, but there was no way Britain was ever going to give him free reign over Europe. Even Chamberlain, a man as committed to peace as any other, realised by 1939 that Hitler wanted to too much, that he could not be bought off without signing our own death warrant. Halifax may have wanted peace in 1940, but this was the darkest hour, when France had fallen and Britain looked down and out, but any peace offered would have been on German terms and not at all palatable to the British. The best he ever hoped for was British neutrality, there was certainly no chance of Britain being a willing participant in ensuring German domination of Europe, regardless of Churchill.

 

[Eclectic Dreck]

What if the bullet missed Archduke Franz Ferdinand?

Since so much of modern history was forged in the brutal meat grinders of the first and second world war's, I think this is the most interesting of the hypothetical questions. Would war have been averted altogether or was a war inevitable at that point?

 

[BGH122]

Winston Churchill would have waited in a dark alley for Neville Chamberlain and shanked him repeatedly with a samurai katana. Whilst chanting the following Haiku:

"Potential lost
Kismet stroking my senses
As I fade from light"

At this exact moment the French would have found out how to build atomic super-Nazis and would have out-Nazid the Nazis. France would take over the world with no-one to oppose them and Japan would order all its forces to kamikaze into the sun.

 

[Insomniaku]

they wouldn't ride on dinos they would develope a technology to evolve them into dinosaur vampires with biomechanical arms, legs, and lazer beem cannons shipped from Germany's Cyberdyne division. The aftermath of a world war would result in them taking over the world and starting a series of sitcoms, fast food chains, and book stores, like: Two and a Half Nazi Dinosaurs, McHitler's, and Chapters.... whites only.

 

[luckshot]

if cheese burgers hadn't been invented the cattle industry would have failed.

your question seems a bit odd, the type of megalomaniac person that Hitler was and built himself and the german country into would have invaded someone else. if he was a different person he wouldn't have used the depression to take power and overthrow the german government

 

[Ridergurl10]

Hitler didnt want a war with Britain or France... he only wanted to fight the Eastern Europeans and communists..

Britain and France only went to war with Hitler because he invaded Poland....


No invasion of poland would probaly have lead to Fascists Vs Communists without the US or Britain etc involved.. then its a question of who would have won?

This isn't true, Hitler wanted power. Power meant conquering the current world powers, which were at that time Britain and France. The US and the USSR were on the way up. Hitler had absolutely planned on a war with Britain and France. Also up until the invasion of Poland Hitler and Stalin were allies, so theoretically if Hitler hadn't invaded Poland then they would have remained allies (still not likley cause Hitler really didn't like communists, but at that point he was still willing to deal with Stalin if it meant keeping the war off of the eastern front).

Where are these plans for war with britian? His Plan for power was a central european reich based on 'living space' to the east of germany. The Eastern front was the only one he was interested in. He wanted to remain on cordial terms with Britain (to call France a world power is laughable) and the USA. And also Stalin didn't care when Hitler invaded Poland, it was the basis of the alliance and in fact he joined in the invasion. Stalin and Hitler fell out when Hitler invaded Russia, Stalin thought that was a bit much.

In answer to the OP i doubt this would of changed much down the line. The Russians would of grown in power and (maybe through more subtle means) conquered Europe. Their growing power would of put Hitler under growing pressure. He may well of snapped and started the final solution and become isolated and open to Russian attack or run in to the arms of the US protection. The difference is simply where the iron curtain would of been drawn. Oh and berlin would of been a lot less interesting.

Sorry to correct you, but you are wrong. Hitler absolutly had plans for war with Britain. He was well aware that when he attacked Poland it would bring Britain and France in to the war. They were allies. The reason he moved on and attacked the USSR first, after taking France, was he knew he wasn't strong enough to attack across the channel yet, but he still bombed the hell out of Britain. Doesn't sound real cordial to me! France was still a world power at the time. They actually had an incredibly strong military, it was just placed in the wrong area (Maginot Line). They didn't plan well and they lost, I'm not denying that, but they were a world power still at the time. Stalin didn't care when Hitler invaded Poland the first time (because of the non-agression pact), but when Hitler entered the Soviet half of Poland it was a huge deal to Stalin.

 

[fenrizz]

A much more interesting questing in my opinion:

What if Hitler had decided not to invade the Soviet Union?
What if the Japanese had not bombed Pearl Harbor, or even bombed it a year later?

 

[Baneat]

It's way too far back to predict.

 

[D.C.]

Hitler didnt want a war with Britain or France... he only wanted to fight the Eastern Europeans and communists..

Britain and France only went to war with Hitler because he invaded Poland....


No invasion of poland would probaly have lead to Fascists Vs Communists without the US or Britain etc involved.. then its a question of who would have won?

This isn't true, Hitler wanted power. Power meant conquering the current world powers, which were at that time Britain and France. The US and the USSR were on the way up. Hitler had absolutely planned on a war with Britain and France. Also up until the invasion of Poland Hitler and Stalin were allies, so theoretically if Hitler hadn't invaded Poland then they would have remained allies (still not likley cause Hitler really didn't like communists, but at that point he was still willing to deal with Stalin if it meant keeping the war off of the eastern front).

True Hitler wanted power, and Britain and France were (at the time the powerhouses) but Hitler thought of Britain and France of losing power (which is correct.. look at us now). Hitler only allied with Stalin to invade Poland ... so if Hitler didnt invade Poland he wouldnt have allied with Stalin. Hitler wanted control over the East not the West.

 

[Pimppeter2]

Yes if history changed, history would be different

 

[Darkintent]

Allow me to be a history student geek for a moment
If Hitler hadnt invaded poland several things may of happened... he may of invaded another country and started the war anyway. America and Briton may have continued thier policy of appeasement allowing Germany to get so strong that they could infact of been allies in the Cold War (which is what the West wanted because were all pricks at the end of the day) or he may of grown so strong that told the west to stuff it and Ally with the Russians and killed us all because even in the sorry ass state germanys army was in it somehow maneged to kick the west's ass for some years before D-Day

 

[Inarticulate_Underachiever]

It's impossible to ever know, damn butterfly effect...

My head hurts

 

[Gerazzi]

If only

I WAS GOING TO SAY THAT...
btw, it would be to say that all of the different choices that would be following that would create a chain reaction forming some sort of future none of us would be able to accurately predict, it's about on par with "what if they'd developed the atomic bomb during the middle ages?" oh... well that one's pretty obvious but ah well

>>
<<
I'm going to make that thread now...

 

[mythbuster343]

Hitler didnt want a war with Britain or France... he only wanted to fight the Eastern Europeans and communists..

Britain and France only went to war with Hitler because he invaded Poland....


No invasion of poland would probaly have lead to Fascists Vs Communists without the US or Britain etc involved.. then its a question of who would have won?

commies would have won. but thats just for know reason. if that did happen, who knows who would have won, which makes my first sentance pointless.

 

[Eykal]

If Hitler had not declared war on Poland, he would've won. Then his lead scientists would clone dinosaurs from the fossils, and his army would ride around on said dinosaurs, striding the world as a colossus.

Just my take.

And then he would've resurrected Jesus to lead his army from atop a Velociraptor!