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.