Post: #1

Since a lot of threads about American politics/attitude/stereotypes end up in discussions about who won what and who would theoretically win from another in WWII, I decided to start a dedicated thread for this.

This includes the use of Godwin's Law or a Reductio ad Hitlerum (playing the Hitler card)

Please direct the users to this thread so we can keep the other threads clean and focused on topic.

The definition of the Godwin Law:
"Given enough time, in any online discussion—regardless of topic or scope—someone inevitably makes a comparison to Hitler or the Nazis"

The definition of Reductio ad Hitlerum:
The argument is that a policy leads to – or is the same as – one advocated or implemented by Adolf Hitler or the Third Reich and so "proves" that the original policy is undesirable.


Post here all your theories and please do stick to facts.

Post: #2

I'm just importing my debate from the other thread:

(04-29-2013 04:52 AM)Teedub Wrote:  

(04-29-2013 04:45 AM)InternationPlayboy Wrote:  

(04-29-2013 04:43 AM)Teedub Wrote:  

(04-29-2013 04:06 AM)MidWest Wrote:  

(04-29-2013 02:30 AM)Teedub Wrote:  We'd probably be speaking Russian actually. Hitler committed warfare suicide by attacking the Soviets and opening up a second front.

Hitler was actually winning that second front against the Soviets. Stalin was literally on his knees as the Germans were driving through Russia. If it wasnt for FDR's Lend-Lease Act which gave aid to the Soviet Union and England and America opening another front in the West (D-Day invasion) Hitler would have quite possibly taken over all of Europe. So InternationalPlayboy is right on this one.

He was winning up to a point, but his army was very, very unprepared for the extreme winter weather conditions. The turning point of the war was the Battle of Stalingrad, not American involvement. I'm not being anti-American, but I'm also not going to overstate the influence of 'Murica in WW2. But yes, they did help.

Britain would most likely have fallen to the Nazis had the Americans not stepped in. They helped in a huge way.

There's a new thread, we'll continue discussion there. Yeah you're possibly right, but I disagree that we'd all be speaking German now, or wearing swastikas, as the Soviets would have just kept marching West and would have taken over a battered, bruised and exhausted Western Europe after they'd defeated Germany.

Post: #3

(04-29-2013 04:53 AM)Teedub Wrote:  I'm just importing my debate from the other thread:

(04-29-2013 04:52 AM)Teedub Wrote:  

(04-29-2013 04:45 AM)InternationPlayboy Wrote:  

(04-29-2013 04:43 AM)Teedub Wrote:  

(04-29-2013 04:06 AM)MidWest Wrote:  Hitler was actually winning that second front against the Soviets. Stalin was literally on his knees as the Germans were driving through Russia. If it wasnt for FDR's Lend-Lease Act which gave aid to the Soviet Union and England and America opening another front in the West (D-Day invasion) Hitler would have quite possibly taken over all of Europe. So InternationalPlayboy is right on this one.

He was winning up to a point, but his army was very, very unprepared for the extreme winter weather conditions. The turning point of the war was the Battle of Stalingrad, not American involvement. I'm not being anti-American, but I'm also not going to overstate the influence of 'Murica in WW2. But yes, they did help.

Britain would most likely have fallen to the Nazis had the Americans not stepped in. They helped in a huge way.

There's a new thread, we'll continue discussion there. Yeah you're possibly right, but I disagree that we'd all be speaking German now, or wearing swastikas, as the Soviets would have just kept marching West and would have taken over a battered, bruised and exhausted Western Europe after they'd defeated Germany.

That's IF the SU would have taken out Germany. If Germany would have defeated the UK, they wouldn't have been fighting a two front war.

Post: #4

(04-29-2013 04:58 AM)InternationPlayboy Wrote:  

(04-29-2013 04:53 AM)Teedub Wrote:  I'm just importing my debate from the other thread:

(04-29-2013 04:52 AM)Teedub Wrote:  

(04-29-2013 04:45 AM)InternationPlayboy Wrote:  

(04-29-2013 04:43 AM)Teedub Wrote:  He was winning up to a point, but his army was very, very unprepared for the extreme winter weather conditions. The turning point of the war was the Battle of Stalingrad, not American involvement. I'm not being anti-American, but I'm also not going to overstate the influence of 'Murica in WW2. But yes, they did help.

Britain would most likely have fallen to the Nazis had the Americans not stepped in. They helped in a huge way.

There's a new thread, we'll continue discussion there. Yeah you're possibly right, but I disagree that we'd all be speaking German now, or wearing swastikas, as the Soviets would have just kept marching West and would have taken over a battered, bruised and exhausted Western Europe after they'd defeated Germany.

That's IF the SU would have taken out Germany. If Germany would have defeated the UK, they wouldn't have been fighting a two front war.

That's a fair point.

Post: #5

I'm not quite sure what you're getting at here, but I know this much: we lost the Cold War. The Soviet Union might have fallen, but what washed up on our shores were the bad sociological ideas (now taught in college), political correctness (check the media), for-the-rich economics (all presidents since Reagan), and invasive, 24/7 government (look around you).

When I was a kid in school, they'd scare us with stories of the Soviets: how they weren't allowed this or that freedom, there was no due process, police had insane power, everyone was out of work, cities were hellholes. We are them now. We just dressed it up in our own patriotic colors.

But it's not all doom and gloom, kids. These days will look like the golden era before they let those 33 million immigrants come in and turn the US into a Third World hellhole with willing slave labor. Then we can compare ourselves to countries that have Malaria.

Post: #6

Pretty small universe of European countries that were "bailed out by the US". Germany, Italy, Austria, Romania, Bulgaria - defeated Axis. Poland, Czech Republic, Slovakia - basically became Russian colonies. Spain, Portugal carried on as before.

So basically you had over a million US casualties for the sake of freeing France and the UK and a few small NW European states. And France and the UK were the first to declare war and arguably precipitated the conflict by providing guarantees to an extreme Polish government so it became unwilling to negotiate regarding the return of German territory. And the power vacuum was filled by Russia, which would be our main enemy of the next 40 years.

Like Pat Buchanan wrote, for the US point of view, an unnecessary war. It is impossible to predict what the outcome would have been if the US had sat out but it is hard to imagine it would have been any worse.

Post: #7

(04-29-2013 05:08 AM)Days of Broken Arrows Wrote:  But it's not all doom and gloom, kids. These days will look like the golden era before they let those 33 million immigrants come in and turn the US into a Third World hellhole with willing slave labor. Then we can compare ourselves to countries that have Malaria.

Which 33 million immigrants? We've got tons of poor Romanians and Bulgarians coming to the UK very soon, but not 33 million of them! That would destroy out infrastructure in weeks. I know the US is much bigger, but 33 million people in a short space of time is lunacy.

Post: #8

(04-29-2013 05:19 AM)Teedub Wrote:  

(04-29-2013 05:08 AM)Days of Broken Arrows Wrote:  But it's not all doom and gloom, kids. These days will look like the golden era before they let those 33 million immigrants come in and turn the US into a Third World hellhole with willing slave labor. Then we can compare ourselves to countries that have Malaria.

Which 33 million immigrants? We've got tons of poor Romanians and Bulgarians coming to the UK very soon, but not 33 million of them! That would destroy out infrastructure in weeks. I know the US is much bigger, but 33 million people in a short space of time is lunacy.

This 33 million:
http://dailycaller.com/2013/04/26/anti-i...on-people/

Post: #9

At the start of 1941 before operation Barbarossa the german military was the most powerful and experienced in the world. It had recently defeated the french army along with the allied expedition force which was thought of at the time as the best in the world in just 6 weeks. The first month of the eastern front against the soviet union was incredibly successful in military terms for the germans. Virtually the entire soviet air force in the western region was destroyed and entire soviet armies had been surrounded and cut off. But the germans massively underestimated the red army ability to mobilize and the determination of the defense so there was no quick victory thus the vast majority of the Wehrmacht was tied up in the eastern front.
Had the Soviet Union collapsed it would be virtually impossible for Britain and America to liberate europe. Likewise had britain made peace with germany after the battle of france the Soviet Union probably would have collapsed after the german invasion regardless of american intervention because there would be no need to defend the atlantic wall with 900 000 solders. Germany ultimately had the power to beat the russians or the western allies but not both and so was defeated.

Post: #10

(04-29-2013 05:58 AM)liberman Wrote:  At the start of 1941 before operation Barbarossa the german military was the most powerful and experienced in the world. It had recently defeated the french army along with the allied expedition force which was thought of at the time as the best in the world in just 6 weeks. The first month of the eastern front against the soviet union was incredibly successful in military terms for the germans. Virtually the entire soviet air force in the western region was destroyed and entire soviet armies had been surrounded and cut off. But the germans massively underestimated the red army ability to mobilize and the determination of the defense so there was no quick victory thus the vast majority of the Wehrmacht was tied up in the eastern front.
Had the Soviet Union collapsed it would be virtually impossible for Britain and America to liberate europe. Likewise had britain made peace with germany after the battle of france the Soviet Union probably would have collapsed after the german invasion regardless of american intervention because there would be no need to defend the atlantic wall with 900 000 solders. Germany ultimately had the power to beat the russians or the western allies but not both and so was defeated.

I think the world was in luck that Hitler was such a totalitarian egomaniac. If had actually listened to his generals the war would have developed completely different.

It was a major mistake on Hitlers part to help out his friend Mussolini in Africa and the middle East ( Italy basically lost pretty much all of its major battles except for a few early conquests) Germany had considerable losses and the war there was a logistic nightmare.

Post: #11

No Cold War, no middle class.

We would have been where we are now economically (in terms of income distribution) in 1960.

No telling the social stuff.

No WW2, the Depression never ends with Roosevelt pump priming and regulating the economy to death.

It's likely with no WW2 we see the system we have today with a stagnant economy, huge debt, massive regulation by 1945-1950.

With no Cold War there's no reason for the US to support the Asian Tiger economies and those countries stay poor. Britain tries harder to hold on to colonies. So, the whole world economy is smaller and less equal.

If the Cold War were still on, the system would need the support of average Joe and life would be a lot better for him.

Counterfactuals are interesting.

Post: #12

Hitler would have never attacked the UK, he had no intention to, he just wanted to pacify us and take our colonies but even that was beyond the Germans due to the sheer manpower the colonies had. I studied this war for 2 years and El Alamein in my eyes was the turning point of the war, if the Germans won that battle, then the Soviets would have been defeated as all the natural resources of the middle east that Hitler required would have been his and he wouldn't have had to push so hard on the eastern front.

We are always told in Military History, Hitler repeated Napoleon's mistake of pushing for Moscow. The Baltics, Belarus and Ukraine should have sufficed just for their natural resources, it was foolhardy and greedy to go further as Moscow was not even a priority at first, Leningrad and Ukraine were. Of course stereotyping of Russians didnt help his cause, they believed them to be unprepared and what not but the Russians were the second in industrial output worldwide to the US.

The Americans were always going to enter the war, it wasn't Hitler who bombed Pearl Harbour.

Post: #13

(04-29-2013 07:58 AM)bojangles Wrote:  The Americans were always going to enter the war, it wasn't Hitler who bombed Pearl Harbour.

Most probably, however, after Pearl Harbor the U.S. only declared war on Japan. Germany declared war on the U.S. the following day (or so).

Post: #14

Any speculation of how Germany could have won is moot because the US got the bomb first. Even though Germany had Heisenberg, we now know that the Germans never made the conceptual leap which was necessary to make a functioning and effective atomic bomb. According to Albert Speer, Hitler supported nuclear bomb research but gave it low priority not really seeing its potential. Germany was lucky that they lost a conventional war.

Post: #15

(04-29-2013 12:05 PM)Sherman Wrote:  Any speculation of how Germany could have won is moot because the US got the bomb first. Even though Germany had Heisenberg, we now know that the Germans never made the conceptual leap which was necessary to make a functioning and effective atomic bomb. According to Albert Speer, Hitler supported nuclear bomb research but gave it low priority not really seeing its potential. Germany was lucky that they lost a conventional war.

I think we tend to overestimate the power of nuclear weapons. If the Nazis had successfully conquered the Soviet Union, the fact that the U.S. developed nuclear hegemony would not have been sufficient by itself to achieve unconditional victory over them. There's a strong likelihood a greater Germany under the Nazis or some successor regime would have persisted into a post-war period.

Post: #16

I think from this is that we can count our lucky stars that the Axis Powers - Nazi Germany, Fascist Italy and Imperial Japan were defeated. Had the USSR lost at Stalingrad, the consequences do not bare thinking about.

Post: #17

(04-29-2013 12:05 PM)Sherman Wrote:  Any speculation of how Germany could have won is moot because the US got the bomb first. Even though Germany had Heisenberg, we now know that the Germans never made the conceptual leap which was necessary to make a functioning and effective atomic bomb. According to Albert Speer, Hitler supported nuclear bomb research but gave it low priority not really seeing its potential. Germany was lucky that they lost a conventional war.

That's funny. Germany was ahead of everyone in terms of science and rocket science and they would easily outpower America if they had won the war.

What I want to understand is why Germany didn't bomb England's airports and factories, instead of London. If they had won the air battle they'd win the war against England.

Post: #18

(04-29-2013 07:58 AM)bojangles Wrote:  Hitler would have never attacked the UK, he had no intention to, he just wanted to pacify us and take our colonies but even that was beyond the Germans due to the sheer manpower the colonies had. I studied this war for 2 years and El Alamein in my eyes was the turning point of the war, if the Germans won that battle, then the Soviets would have been defeated as all the natural resources of the middle east that Hitler required would have been his and he wouldn't have had to push so hard on the eastern front.

We are always told in Military History, Hitler repeated Napoleon's mistake of pushing for Moscow. The Baltics, Belarus and Ukraine should have sufficed just for their natural resources, it was foolhardy and greedy to go further as Moscow was not even a priority at first, Leningrad and Ukraine were. Of course stereotyping of Russians didnt help his cause, they believed them to be unprepared and what not but the Russians were the second in industrial output worldwide to the US.

The Americans were always going to enter the war, it wasn't Hitler who bombed Pearl Harbour.

I disagree, the defeat at EL Alamein was a turning point in the North African campaign, but in terms of the war it was a side show, with the Eastern front being where the war was won or lost. Germany under Rommel managed to tie down a lot of allied resources with using only limited German numbers of men and materials. Could such allied resources have been better used elsewhere. After North Africa the allies had a tough time for the rest of the war fighting in Italy which the Germans defended with skill and limited manpower. Churchills "soft under belly" of the Axis turned out to be anything but.

Post: #19

Hitler's mistake was invading the Soviet Union while still at war with England. If Hitler would have never lost his cool when it came to invading the UK, and had a little more patience in his attack o, he would have taken the UK out of the equation since they were on their knees.

By taking out England, Hitler would have had complete control of the British Navy, its colonies and would have made it harder for a D-Day invasion to happen. He then would have had complete focus on the Soviet Union without worrying about a US intervention. It would have also left the US with no reliable ally.

Remember that up until the Battle of Britain, Hitler has never lost a single battle, and when he saw that the British were not surrendering it took a major blow in his ego, and decided to invade Russia instead, who he thought he would take over the country in a month. Its crazy how he viewed a whole group of people based on an ideology he had of race. Thought the Russians were an inferior race full of Jews and thought of Americans as "mongrels" or "Mixed creatures" who would never win a war against his "Aryan" legion.

Its interesting also to note that on the day Hitler commited suicide, he predicted that the US and the Soviet Union would fight to control the world and that the Soviet Union will prevail because they were more "disciplined" in the end.

Post: #20

I wonder how different it'd be if he took everyone he killed from the Holocaust and used them to fight in the war. And then after winning, proceed on to slowly killing off any groups he found unworthy.

Post: #21

(04-29-2013 01:24 PM)NY Digital Wrote:  I wonder how different it'd be if he took everyone he killed from the Holocaust and used them to fight in the war. And then after winning, proceed on to slowly killing off any groups he found unworthy.

Yeah, actually when the Germans invaded the Soviet Union and entered Ukraine (which was part of the Soviet Union at the time), the Germans were treated as liberators from Stalinist tyranny. Many of Hitler's generals urged Hitler to use this to his advantage and use the population in Ukraine to fight with them, but again Hitler refused and instead ordered to kill any undesirables and bring their own kind of tyranny to Ukraine. This angered the Russians even more and gave them even more motivation to fight off the Nazi invasion. As in Hitlers own words "We will only get our strength back as soon as we get rid of the jews".

Post: #22

The bomb worked against the Japanese. It's hard to imagine how the Nazis could have ruled an empire with Berlin bombed to a crisp like Hiroshima. Furthermore, Hitler was in bad health and told Speer he was going to retire immediately after winning the war. So you would have a Nazi bureaucracy with weak leadership ruling over a Slavic empire treating them like subhumans and getting away with it. I don't think so.

Post: #23

(04-29-2013 05:14 AM)Lemmo Wrote:  So basically you had over a million US casualties for the sake of freeing France and the UK and a few small NW European states. And France and the UK were the first to declare war and arguably precipitated the conflict by providing guarantees to an extreme Polish government so it became unwilling to negotiate regarding the return of German territory. And the power vacuum was filled by Russia, which would be our main enemy of the next 40 years.

Like Pat Buchanan wrote, for the US point of view, an unnecessary war. It is impossible to predict what the outcome would have been if the US had sat out but it is hard to imagine it would have been any worse.

WHOA dude, are you serious? "Extreme Polish government"? I guess they should have rolled over like the Czechs and let hungry Hitler take bites by bites of Polish territory? You know as a fact that Hitler's' demands to return the free port-city of Danzig (Gdansk) and some other areas where there was some German population living in Poland were merely pretexts for stirring up conflict, making the Poles seem unreasonable, etc. Hitler had already plans to occupy all of Poland and beyond as part of his "Lebensraum" idea, which was that Germany needed land in the East to "live" and feed themselves and use the Slavic people as basically slaves.

So you are saying appeasing Hitler would have worked? Tell that to Chamberlain haha

Also, regarding your comment about "it is hard to imagine it would have been any worse" if the US had not entered the war: I can guarantee you it would have been worse. I cannot believe you don't think a Soviet-controlled Western Europe, maybe also U.K. would have been "less worse". Because that is what would have happened if the US didn't step in Europe. UK wasn't going to take on Germany on it's own in Western Europe. Therefore, US isolationism was never an option. Fact is that the U.S. saved Europe's ass in many ways. From D-day to the Marshall Plan.

Post: #24

(04-29-2013 06:31 AM)Neil Skywalker Wrote:  I think the world was in luck that Hitler was such a totalitarian egomaniac. If had actually listened to his generals the war would have developed completely different.

It was a major mistake on Hitlers part to help out his friend Mussolini in Africa and the middle East ( Italy basically lost pretty much all of its major battles except for a few early conquests) Germany had considerable losses and the war there was a logistic nightmare.

I agree with this assessment. German Wehrmacht was tactically excellent, but strategically made serious errors because of Hitlers vetos and micromanaging the generals. He was his own worse enemy.

Post: #25

(04-29-2013 01:44 PM)Sherman Wrote:  The bomb worked against the Japanese. It's hard to imagine how the Nazis could have ruled an empire with Berlin bombed to a crisp like Hiroshima. Furthermore, Hitler was in bad health and told Speer he was going to retire immediately after winning the war. So you would have a Nazi bureaucracy with weak leadership ruling over a Slavic empire treating them like subhumans and getting away with it. I don't think so.

The A-bomb was more used as a show of force against the Soviets.

There are discussions as to whether or not the A-bombs was what made Japan surrender as it was more likely that the Soviets entering the battle was what caused Japan to surrender, as in Manchuria the Japanese weren't expecting the Soviets to attack, which would have freed up the Manchurian forces to be recalled to defend the home islands.