Would Hitler have won World War II if he had left Russia alone?

[JPZenger]

13. Many things that could have allowed Hitler to win

I'm reading a good book entitled 1940 about the German invasion of Britain. Hitler had half-heartedly ordered the preparation for that invasion, but he never put much energy into it. Hitler had really expected that Britain would negotiate an end to the war.

Many of the German military chiefs thought the invasion was doomed to fail, but were too scared to say so. The barges, ships and boats were lined up in the French and Dutch ports for the invasion. The invasion would have mainly involved tugboats pulling river barges full of tens of thousands of troops and thousands of horses at 4 mph.

The currents and tides make navigation very difficult in the Channel, even in ships that are designed for ocean transit, which the German fleet was not. At that point in time, the Germans mainly had 6 destroyers, some lightly armed converted trawlers, and a few small torpedo boats to support the invasion fleet. The book makes the argument that the Royal Navy would have made mincemeat of the invasion fleet before it reached shore, even without the help of the RAF.

The German plan also assumed that the barges would be able to turn around and bring another way of troops and horses ashore. Those barges probably would have never made the first trip intact. The result would have been 50,000 German troops drowning.

Horses were a big part of the German invasion plan of Britain, because Germany had insufficient numbers of trucks.

The Allies spent 4 years preparing and practicing for D-Day, and conducted many smaller amphibious landings to gain experience. The German armed forces were given 2 months to prepare.

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One author said that if Hitler had invaded Iraq and grabbed its oil supplies, Germany would have been much better off. It would have been an easy invasion.

If Hitler had cooperated with Ukraine, he could have used their vast agricultural products and natural resources on friendly terms. The Ukranians hated the Soviet government, would have welcomed friendly assistance to separate themselves from Moscow. Instead, Hitler quickly alienated every Ukrainian with his brutality. Hitler was obsessed with destroying Communism, and was not thinking rationally about controlling territory and resources.

It Hitler had not declared war on the US right after Pearl Harbor, it may have been difficult for FDR to get a declaration of war against Germany. Instead, the US might have put most of its efforts into defeating Japan.

If Italy's army had stayed out of the war, Germany might have been better off.

If Germany had put more women to work in factories much sooner, it could have had much greater production of war material.

In many ways, Hitler was his own worst enemy.