Top 10 Reasons Germany lost World War II
October 26, 2007 4:44 pm Politics & HistoryWhile some people aren’t exactly sure why Germany lost the war, I present some alternative facts that may have contributed.
10. Hitler and the Nazis were Stupid
Containing opposition to liberalism, a Communist / Jewish conspiracy, and Aryan Superiorism, Nazi ideologies have been radical, and perhaps to the extent of insane. Just the fact that they made an alliance with Japan shows how hypocritical their beliefs really were.
9. Attacking Poland
Some may say that Germany lost the war before it even began. Hitler already had many territorial gains in the forms of Czechoslovakia, Sudetenland, etc. But the Germans got greedy and decided to invade Poland.
8. Losing Allies
With Japan far away fighting in the Pacific Theater, they only had Yugoslavia, Hungary, Romania, and a few other smaller Eastern European countries comprising of the Axis Powers, but most specifically, Italy. After Mussolini was executed and taken out of the picture, Italy declared war on Germany and stacked the odds against them even higher.
7. London Bombing
The Germans had a prime opportunity to cripple the British Military and take out the Royal Air Force during 1940 throughout Operation Eagle. If Goerning and Hitler had not changed their minds about attacking the RAF Fighter Command Stations, they may not have lost the war on the Allied front as easily.
6. Declaring War on the USA
Although the US had their hands full throughout the first half of the war, with Japan, by the time the invasion of France came around in 1944, Germany had one more country to fight.
5. Persecution of Jews
While we may have not had much knowledge of the Holocaust during the war, If the Nazi Party had not been so arrogant in their beliefs the German-Jewish population could have been a force to reckon with. Notable Jews such as Albert Einstein could have done much to provide German scientists with technical and scientific foresight.
4. Technologically Slow
Had the Germans invented the Atomic Bomb first, they would have had a huge advantage over the Allies, even after the D-Day invasion.
3. Economic Troubles
Not only did Nazi Germany have a difficult time maintaining fuel, oil, and other economic tools for war, but their enemies had plenty of resources, especially from th e United States through agreements such as the Lend-Lease Act.
2. Declaring War on the Soviet Union
Why Germany betrayed the Soviet Union, I’ll never understand. They signed a non-aggression pact with them and could have focused their efforts on France and Great Britain. Instead they chose to attack a country with harsh winters and leadership that would kill their own soldiers rather than retreat, and in the end opened up a two-front war.
1. Loss of Resolve
The German people and military have gone through *much* throughout those past six years. War can be both physically and mentally draining not only for the soldiers but also the people at home. It may be that the Germans just didn’t have the willpower to continue the fight, and just wanted peace.
November 8th, 2007 at 10:29 am
10. Hitler and the Nazis were Stupid
Hitler transformed Germany from 1933-39 by depleting unemployment rates, improving jobs, industry, and the general economy. He brought hope to a country comprised of people who were resentful and humiliated by a Treaty worded to obviously cripple Germany. Yes, Hitler was an insane bastard, and yes his ideologies were mental, (particularly blue eyes, blonde hair thing given his own appearance). I think saying he was stupid is not really fair given the positive things he did. I’m no Nazi, in fact, I’m part Czech, but come on, we’re not 5 years old.
November 8th, 2007 at 4:44 pm
I do realize that he did some great things for Germany, however the point I raised was argumentative, as there were also a lot of bad choices made in that country, by different members of the party as a whole.
November 10th, 2007 at 9:11 am
I have a lot of problems with your list here, and the fact that it made it on to Military History Carnival this month with so many questionable remarks.
“Loss of Resolve?” The Battle of Berlin should indicate that there was really no loss of resolve, since the Germans fought to the end beyond all reasonable hope of victory.
“Hitler and the Nazis were stupid.” Maybe their ideologies were stupid, but you overlook the military. The Wehrmacht had some of the most brilliant generals of the twentieth century, including Manstein and Guderian. The Blitzkrieg attack on France, was extremely risky, but turned out to be one of the most brilliant offensives of all time.
I also don’t agree that Hitler was stupid. Crazy, yes. Stupid, no. If he and his followers were stupid, he would never have been able to gain the type of power he did and wage the war for that long.
“London Bombing.” Operation Sealion was the code name for the projected invasion of Britain, not the actual operation of the Battle of Britain.
“Declaring War on the Soviet Union.” France was already out of the war when Hitler attacked the Soviet Union, so why would he focus on France?
“Technologically Slow.” Maybe with the nuclear weapon, but you overlook the German tanks, artillery, dive bombers, V-1 and V-2 rockets, and the jet engine at the end, to name just a few of the things in which Germany had a technological edge during the war.
November 10th, 2007 at 11:01 am
I do admit that my reasons tend to be more hypothetical than proven, reflecting on it now, perhaps I should have named the list “Possible” reasons Germany lost WWII.
For “Technologically slow”, the main technologies I was driving at were its nuclear capabilities, as the Germans weren’t able to acquire the technology quickly enough, which could have given them a huge edge in the later days of the war.
For “London Bombing”, you were right I meant to say “Operation Eagle”. I don’t remember why I said sealion, I’ll change it
.
For “Declaring War on the Soviet Union” Germany could have put more of their resources into fighting Great Britain. While technically France was already taken out, there were still French resistance groups such as the BCRA, instead they chose to fight a two-front war.
Those other points raised are subjective, they’re just my personal take on them.
November 25th, 2007 at 11:00 pm
This post fails to appreciate the ideological raison d’etre of the Third Reich. Numbers 2, 5, 9 and even 6 can only be understood within the ideological and cultural matrix that informed the thinking of Hitler and Co. Hitler did not just want to win a war. He wanted to remake the world in which he lived in the process. Without the latter, the former wasn’t even worthwhile.
January 6th, 2008 at 6:34 pm
i belive that it’s all about business& money. the rest is for those who like stories. that’s all
February 17th, 2008 at 9:53 pm
Nice article. Another topic that is quite debatable is point #5. Right now, not all the scholars of the world agree on the intensity of mass genocide of the Jews as proposed. Both parties present astonishing facts, such that you can’t reach a rational decision not amalgamated by emotion. If you don’t believe in the holocaust you are an “axis”, “anti-semetic” automatically as it’s well protected socially specially in the U.S. - No fact can be taken into account that might damage the “holocaust”.
But the first part of your argument is found to be true on all grounds and scholars do agree that Germany’s “Jewish-Discrimination” did play a vital role in it’s downfall. That fact can’t be argued that Germany wanted the Jews outta there so they provoked many of them to flee. Most of the scientists, doctors, lawyers and engineers were Jews at that time in Germany. So Germany didn’t lose some few hundred thousand ordinary people. It lost a vital part of it’s work force.
March 12th, 2008 at 12:14 pm
it;s inprotant to remeber the times, circumstances and the combination of luck, desire and determination. We came dangerously close to losing that war before circumstances, decisions by the leaders, and sheer luck began to work against the Axis just as our forces began to find fortune and opportunity. The sheer determination of the Russian people has to be remembered as something that allowed us to succeed on all fronts by acting as a drain on the attention of Hitler and his staff who were unknowingly on the doorstep of an atomic bomb way before we were. Luckily, they didn’t forsee what this bomb could do. Instead, they focused on the V2 and experimental aircraft..hardly devices that could turn the war back to their favor. But if they had focused on the bomb..even the stout Russians would have capitulated..London would be history..Operation Overlord impossible…see what I mean?
March 13th, 2008 at 5:15 pm
I hate it that Hitler became the ruler of Germany. I mean he got the whole german population to hate the jewish community but they did nothing. Those innocent people had been killed by Hitler. It’s not right. I don’t blame Germans because Hitler had a triat that made the whole Germany worship him.
April 1st, 2008 at 12:43 am
One. The only thing that Germany did not have over the allies was the atomic bomb. The atomic bomb was also not invented till after Germany had surrendered and if left to continue research on the Atomic bomb they may have gotten there before the U.S. Also the ME262 fighter was the first jet propelled plane that was invented in the world by you guessed it Germany! A half dozen of the planes flew into a B-52 formation and took out almost half and did not lose a single ME262. Also, the Germans invented the first assault rifle disguised under the name MP44. Though it was classified as a sub-machine gun it was only used as a cover up because Hitler wanted a sub-machine gun not an automatic rifle. Also the tanks used by the Germans far outclassed any allied tank. The only thing was that allied forces outnumbered the German tanks by a ratio of about 5 to 1. Secondly the Germans were not greedy in attacking poland. They had lost territory to Poland after losing WWI. Also on september 1, 1939 German forces attacked Poland marking the *start* of WWII. Thanks for reading!
April 14th, 2008 at 8:17 pm
If I took the time to explain everything wrong and uninformed on your list then you would never hear the end of it. Why you would decide to write this based on what seems to be mostly opinion is, in a word, stupid.
let me put it this way: insane is not the same as stupid.
May 2nd, 2008 at 2:46 am
Biggest single factor?
Adolf Hitler’s madness.
His madness made him a galvanizing and stellar political force, but no matter what the people think, a mentally-ill ex-Army Corporal still makes a very poor Generalissimo.
So he did precisely what can be expected when one such as he receives such power, which was to build a vast and powerful army in a short period of time while nationalizing industry and mobilizing the citizenry, and then proceed to drive all three into the ground through simple strategic and economic ineptitude.
July 19th, 2008 at 5:41 pm
A couple of points to address.Hitler wasn’t stupid he was inept, the nazis had already the jet engine and jet fighter as early as 1940 but inept as he was he decided to cut back funding to the project and spend the money on other areas of his military. And as for when he lost the war December 1941 is plain wrong, Germany lost the war in 1940 during the battle of Britain when he switched from the raf to bombing cities. Because the luftwaffe were pounding the raf and their airfields at such a rate that aircraft and pilot lossess were becoming unsutainable. If the nazis had continued against the raf they would have won the battle of Britain invaded and everything else would have been drastically different.And by the way America was content to stay out of the European theatre and concentrate on Japan.So by winning the BoB and invading Britain the USA would have sued for peace. You should WWII documentaries a bit more.
October 21st, 2008 at 2:46 pm
Hitler was a political genius but he knew nothing about war strategy or economics.
October 21st, 2008 at 2:57 pm
Germany lacked the production of tiger tanks because of its complex design it was hard to produce unlike the Russian T34 which was easy to produce and the American sherman tank. The germans could not afford the losses while the russians and americans could.
November 14th, 2008 at 8:42 pm
Hitler was a dumbass thats why they lost the fucking war
November 14th, 2008 at 8:42 pm
fuck hitler
November 14th, 2008 at 8:43 pm
one of his generals could of been a better dictator then him
like von manstein or rommel
November 14th, 2008 at 8:43 pm
hitler was a dumb cunt
November 14th, 2008 at 8:44 pm
stalin was a bigger piece of shit then hitler we should of taken his ass out too
November 18th, 2008 at 10:55 am
OKay half of those answers are wrong, Germany didnt loose the war becuase of those. Germany lost the war becuase of little mistakes Hitler chose and didnt listen to his Generals, Germany could have one the war if they supplied the German Troops with Winter wear when they were in Russia and wait out the Russian Winter. If Germany would of waited and enforced the Western Fornt you would be speaking German right now. So i suggest you relook at you sources and find some better ones….
December 13th, 2008 at 12:24 pm
Half of you remarks upon hitler are incorrect. He was more than a political genius, He was War stragery smart aswell, his production line out beat the russians and allies, but he failed to equip them to the soliders..
December 25th, 2008 at 11:52 am
Hitler was not stupid rather he was over ambitious after his initial success in the war and the also the success of Blitzkreig that mad him drunk with power, You may call the Nazis stupid for only one reason that is they danced to the tunes of hitler’s brutality towards the Jews though they are exceptions like oskar wilde, but some-one from the Nazi party itself should have stopped hitler through some conspiracy before it got too late.
Another reason for hitler not winning the war was his stupid attack on the Soviets i think he should have kicked british and rest of europe and then finally betrayed Russia if he was to win the war, .. i think the Stalingrad war was the turning point of the war after hitler’s success.
More than stupidity of Mr Adolf Hitler it was inhuman and brutality of that insane wicked soul… who alone became the cause of 60 million deaths and 6 million Jews. This reminds me of the amount of resources that he wasted on the execution of the Jews… And Above all what surprises even until today is how could a whole country agree to whatever Mr Hitler said and how could they carry out executions against the Jews????? It gives me an impression that Hitler was a genius and the Nazi Party was Stupid….
January 18th, 2009 at 1:01 pm
Germany lost the war because they decided the war against USSR. Napoleon lost for the same reason when he decided to be at war with Russia.
The same German army (6th Army) that took France was literally destroyed in Stalingrado. Stalingrado is the reason for Germany defeat. Hitler didn’t wait for the winter of ‘42 and sent his soldiers to a deadly trap… He was a crazy man that fooled all German citizens. By 1940, Germany had all what it rightly claimed but this man, Hitler, was greedy and full of hatred… This Austrian man took Germany and million of innocents directly to dead.
Stalingrado was the inflexion point and the most decisive battle of the war. Then 2 battles, Africa & Normandy were definitive for the outcome of the European war.
February 15th, 2009 at 10:20 pm
Hitler lost the war in russia because the bliztkrieg became bogged down in the mud and he didnt listen to his generals hitler wanted to control everything he should of attacked moscow right of away on its flank with all his forces together and not slitting them into three groups (which worked in the begging of the war in europe)the germans had early victories against russia but hitler would control everything and would not allow a withdrawal.
February 27th, 2009 at 5:29 pm
Looks like Europe have several chances to be unified with Charlemagne (karl der grosse), Napoleon, Hitler. In all of those situations the major players were always playing tricks on each other specially England, France, Germany and Russia. Now under the European Union they are trying to put some foot on the world of influence, out of necessity, because the ones calling the shots now are USA with a major military base in central europe that prevents Russia from going all the way up to Spain, Russia and Asia. But again they are in the same old situation as usual, the lack of natural resources, their limited economies and the lack of expansion in new European cities in logisticaly important resourful geographic areas. Their adopted democratic models (they used to be monarchies) are also playing tricks on themselves specially now that is run with ‘Socialists’ in every dimension, this is causing them to loose their own old identity, they dont know what they are any more, are they muslims, hindus, pakis, white, blacks, etc…?? so their will centuries to come before they are able to figure out what to do with themselves, but mother nature is very simple, if you want to survive you will have to expand or die, take your pick.
March 21st, 2009 at 11:52 pm
BS”D
I read part of a religious book that stated the reason Russia was attacked was because they transgressed a know prohibition-arming a belligerent, warlike nation-Germany. (Russia had a most amazing spy network but were unaware of the Nazis assembling openly for attack on their southern border-miraculous!) Britain and France were punished because they abrogated the defense pact they had with Czechoslovakia.
bhoffinger@aol.com
April 3rd, 2009 at 8:16 am
Nazi Germany were unlucky that one of their greatest projects failed to begin. La Coupole in France was designed to launch 50 v2 rockets a day and had it not been for the ally landings a few days before it was due to launch it would have completely destroyed london and would have greatly increased Hitlers chances of winning the war.
April 12th, 2009 at 10:53 am
You are just another stupid fucking american moron. Why are americans so stupid ?
April 14th, 2009 at 10:40 pm
Hitler was, in fact, an idiot. He may have been a great statesman, and he may have put Germany back on her feet, but he was still an idiot.
Why? During the war he routinely overruled his high command. He thought he was a military genius, so he became increasingly combative with the German general staff as the war progressed.
For example, Hitler’s insistence on a Caucus offensive in 1942, which eventually led to Stalingrad. Its important to note that Hitler forbade the 6th army from retreating from Stalingrad while it was being encircled by the Russians. The result was the loss of the entire German 6th army–500,000 men.
Hitler eventually relieved his best Generals of their commands–like Guderian and Mannstein–and replaced them with inept “yes” men. He even forced General Rommel to kill himself.
He also made many other poor strategic choices–wasting the last of the German reserves in the Ardens offensive–which included failing to sign off on the jet fighter prototypes early in the war… he wanted a bomber. Instead the ME-262 didn’t start production until well after it was too late.
And I’m not even counting his batshit choices like:
1. Declaring war on the United States (he didn’t have to do this, and not doing it would have kept the US out of Europe far at least a few more months).
2. Not putting the German economy on a war footing until 1944. Hell in 1944, despite relentless bombing, Germany produced more than in any other year of the war. Why wait until you have 2/3rds of the industrial might of the world fighting you.
3. Wasting resources and manpower of programtic genocide.
We can go on for hours.
April 24th, 2009 at 2:55 pm
I aggree with Scott, Hitler was just a full EGO-CONTROLLING driven POLITICIAN, he was not a tactician or strategist like his gifted generlas like Guderian, Manstein, Runstedt. His high command was full of ass kisser like Keitel and Jodl i.e yes sir kiss ass staff, they paid the price by being hanged and good to be so for kissing ass politicians. If the moron of Hitler would have pay attention to his FIELD MARSHALLs recommendations, he would have put Germany in a far better position and even win the war, with that no Soviet Union,no Putin Russia, no Cold War, no Communist China, no Vietnam, no Norht Korea, no communist Cuba, no Fidel Castro, no communist Latin America, no socialist Europe, no radical islamists threats, etc etc..it probably would have been a better world and Hilter screwed it up..damn you in hell!!
April 25th, 2009 at 5:06 am
As a communist of sorts I have to slightly disagree with you.
German victory in the second world war was highly improbable after the failure of Barbarossa in 1941. Indeed, it isn’t outside the realm of possibility that after that first year, the Soviet Union could have beaten Germany alone.
That he chose to declare war on the United States when he didn’t have to, made things much worse. That, as I’ve said, he consistently disregarded the advice of his Field Marshalls made things much worse for the Germans (Hitler wasn’t a millionth the great military genius he thought he was).
That he made profound strategic errors–failure to comprehend the French and British reaction at the invasion of Poland, failure to at least try to destroy the BEF at Dunkirk with an assault, failing to understand the importance of the Afrika Corps and North Africa, insisting that the German armies pause their forward advance during the summer of 1941 to sweep up cut off Russian units in the Urkaine, failing to set bring Franco into the Axis, the failure of his ill thought out Cacus offensive, stupid choices about weapons development…
All of these things made the situation much more difficult for Hitler, but they did not necessarily “lose” a winnable war.
In my mind, Hitler’s only real chance of victory lay with forcing the British to surrender. This, in my mind, could only have been done with the destruction of the BEF in Dunkirk (Sealion was an impossible task given the lack of landing craft and the weakness of the Kriegsmarine.
After that failure, German victory was still possible, just highly unlikely. Everything had to go correctly for the Germans to win. Certainly, I feel that after the United States became involved the war was un-winnable (not that the Americans actually delivered the fatal blow).
As for the rise of “communist” regimes after the war… mostly you’d still have the same reaction to global capitalism.
The real crime, in my mind, as far as that goes, is the expulsion of Trotsky from Russia and the rise of red fascism under Stalin.
April 25th, 2009 at 6:16 pm
Guderian after the French campaign had consider to go immediately to the Mediterranean campaign because that offer the path of least resistance and more realistic approach than sea lion, getting Malta as an air force base to block the british oil supply from the middle east, not a bad idea, but on the other side Manstein was skeptical of this mediterranean approach because Stalin could have easily launch a surprise attack from the east to Berlin, he was more incline to make the all out Sea Lion operation an strategi approach, but he considered that this approach was very risky. He also considered that the Moscow campaign was another approach although it would have take more time to prepare for.
May 14th, 2009 at 8:56 pm
germany lost because hitler stopped the production of a flamethrower that would have shot 500ft while the american flamethrower shot 100ft and he stopped the production of a jet that could go 236 miles per hour and instead of all this hitler said “lets make the StG-44″
May 14th, 2009 at 8:59 pm
hitler also killed the 10,000 citizens of poland when the german army invaded poland who all said they would rebel against the red army and fight for the germans
May 21st, 2009 at 12:12 pm
Hitler was not a qualify strategist, he had a lot of EGO problems, instead of coordinating an adquate effort with the arm forces he constantly put himself in the way of the operations and sound recommendations (kind of like the socialist democrat usa president Johnson conducting the Vietnam war campaign), at the end he blames everyone and everthing else but himself what a dumb ass corporal, damn it.
June 1st, 2009 at 5:28 pm
Hitler was smart taking Austria,Czechoslovakia first before invading Poland. But if he did not invade poland than he could have made more armys to challenge Belgium,Hungray,Rumania,Greece,
bulgria,Albania,and yugoslavia without going to war with France or Great Britain. and once he conquered all those contrays hey could have truned on russia.
June 1st, 2009 at 6:20 pm
I am right
June 1st, 2009 at 6:20 pm
But he is stewpid
June 6th, 2009 at 12:59 am
10 reasons why germany lost world war 2.
1. Germany didnt have enough resources available to fight a long term war of attrition. For example germany relied on capturing allies fuel in the battle of the bulge and germany didnt have enough oil resources in the beginning of the war it relied on russia and rumania for oil so crucial for waging war.
2.Germany didnt produce enough tanks
because every one of germanys tanks was of complex design was hard to produce unlike the allies who had easy designs to produce .
3. Hitler wanted to run everything which led to disaster because hitler was a pour strategist and didnt let his generals do their job.
4. Germany didnt have a big navy so they couldnt win against britain in the very beggining because britain had the largest navy in the world at the time.
5. Hitler failed to knock britain out of the war in the battle of britain and he lost alot of plains that he could of used against his other enemies like russia or usa.
6. Hitler lost the battle of the atlantic so allied supplies flowed across the atlantic to britain unmolested.
7. Hitler lost control of north africa giving the allies oil and other resources germany needed.
8. Hitler invades russia without enough tanks and planes and soldiers his strategy sucks in russia fighting caldron battles of attrition. When germany needed quick victory or it would lose too many tanks planes and men it could not replace this is the beginning of the end for hitler.
9. Germany declared war on usa this forced germany into fighting a two front war without a quick decisive victory germany would slowly be crushed in a giant vice from the americans in the west and the russians in the east.
10. Many of hitlers generals failed to defy hitler only a few like rommel didnt listen to him with hitler in control of everything the top brass failed to take control and save germany.
June 11th, 2009 at 6:54 am
People should stop and think…
The decisions made in Barbarossa were the ones which brought about the defeat of Germany in the Second World War. Fighting a war on two fronts was the single biggest mistake. In fact, Germany could have remained in a non-agressive state with the USSR until they had eliminated the Western front. Or atleast avoid the suicidal Russian winter (especially if they’re fighting the people who have lived through such conditions all their lives).
Furthermore: ‘fuckball’ and ‘chelsea’ are both immature, single-minded sheep who don’t question sources or opinions and have fallen right ino the hands of 60 y/o and modern day propaganda.
June 11th, 2009 at 6:59 am
I’m not even going to start on the idiocy presented in ‘Lover of history’s comments. For a first, spell right please. And it’s Romania, not with a ‘u’…
June 27th, 2009 at 1:15 pm
Germany’s reasons for a lost war span much more then a top ten list. There were many factors and their interaction and sometimes lack of interaction created the defeat. If we listen to Herman Goring, he indicated the lack of taking the city Moscow gave Germany a “lost war”. If we listen to many of the US industrialist at the time, we simply outproduced the axis. This has many facts behind it, including the adverse fact that the axis lost 10 million people while the allies lost 60 million people. That ratio speaks volumns.
You can not list a top ten or any one reason. You must look at the complexities of human nature and resources for the winning of a war, and how a war, and individual battles, are lost.