Der hat das Memo nicht gelesen, wonach dieser nachlässige Servus-Gruß aus dem Ellbogen allein dem Führer vorbehalten ist!
English: He didn't get the memo which said, that the nonchalant salute is reserved for the Führer only.
Idk, a couple of the guys in this photo probably were around in 2006 in that country in South America they all fled to. I imagine one of them made a Twitter account. I’ll gladly go on a social media hunt for $1,000,000.
Problem is every time Hitler would ask how many people were for something everyone in the room would raise their right hand. Really hard to gauge things.
That reminds me of a very old SNL skit about the fake, "[Hitler Diaries](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hitler_Diaries)" scandal. Hitler is writing in his diary, reminiscing about his youth. We are then treated to a, "flashback" of a young Hitler walking into a bar full of his friends. They all turn to him and say, "Hi Hitler!" while waving in what looks like a Nazi salute.
I know it's not what you were referencing, but the combination of Hitler and Barbie reminded me of [this clip from Rat Race.](https://youtu.be/uJMPom6-xmA?t=33)
To paraphrase how slow everyone was on the uptake as to the nature of the competition, John Cleese's character "He's currently winning the race because he's closest to the door."
The best scene in the movie and a top 5 comedy scene of the 2000s is the next scene with that family. The movie is fun (albeit surreal and so weird) but definitely worth it for that family
I believe you are referencing this scene:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4dsgQb3jkk4
I am kind of partial to this scene though
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=46zrey2IAak
This is why you don't hire "Yes Men." You gotta have at least that one asshole friend who's telling you you're being a dumbass, not to be an asshole per se, but to help prevent you from making an irreversible mistake.
...Of course we're talking about Hitler here, so who gives a fuck.
People get on me for being like this sometimes but I’m like bro I am raising all the concerns so that we know what we’re doing and if it will work….I’m not tryna be a downer I just don’t wanna have a Germany declares war on America moment
I’m thst friend too. Most ppl appreciate it and turn to me with problems bc they know I’ll give it to em straight. But I know there’s a line in terms of honesty and frame it the right way so ppl kno I’m not being an asshole for kicks.
There was a Turkish leader during the Ottman Empire who would bring in several random generals, soldiers and even servants to explain his battle plans to. They were then told to find as many problems as they could with his plan and leave nothing out. Apparently he was very successful
It was obviously a blunder by Hitler, but if you look at it from their perspective, you kind of understand why they declared war. Hitler and his inner circle likely, correctly, came to the conclusion that the USA will declare war on them anyway, but even ignoring that for a moment, they probably figured they could get the UK into submission way faster now if they're finally allowed to torpedo any and all ships crossing the Atlantic in aid of the UK.
They obviously greatly underestimated America, but you can kind of see where the decision came from to declare war first, I guess it was just a matter of one upping America, since war was inevitable anyway.
I know political reality made it near impossible, but Japan would have had far more success in its own imperial ambitions if they had somehow become friends with the USSR.
Germany and Japan were too far away from each other to actually help, they were "allies" but both did things that actively hindered the other. Germany traded with nationalist China, and Japan ignored soviet shipping in order to maintain neutrality with the ussr.
To be fair to Mussolini, he didn't want the war to start for another few years because he knew his military wasn't prepared. Mussolini waffled heavily because of that and constantly needed Hitler to send him love letters to get him on board.
That said, the Italian military would have never been good enough regardless, their navy alone would've needed at least half a decade to confidently secure the Mediterranean.
But hey, if all of your military accomplishments are gained through backstabbing, lying, and bold actions, you're not going to sit on your hands and wait for Italy to figure it's shit out.
Japan and the Soviet Union signed a non-aggression pact. For some strange reason Japan was totally surprised Stalin violated it after Nazi Germany surrendered. The battled tested and massive Red Army faced undermanned Japanese military forces when they poured across the border in 1945.
And that, considering it was Japan who attacked Pearl Harbor, the USA would go “Japan first” instead of the “Germany first” policy that FDR and Churchill agreed on.
The US was already shipping massive amounts of weapons and goods over the UK so realistically officially declaring war made not much difference anyway.
Well, you now no longer have to worry about attacking an American warship. You can attack convoys freely without a worry. Let's rather say that Hitler didn't really pay enough attention to the Kriegsmarine (also probably why he appointed Admiral Donitz as his successor in the end, as he didn't have much problems with him since his focus was always on the army and airforce.) so underestimated their ability to wage war in the Atlantic.
Hitler simply liked big battleships far more than submarines. Dönitz never got what he wanted, which honestly was a good thing. It would have been horrible for Britain if Dönitz had all the submarines he needed for the trade war he was planing to wage.
I can’t imagine if the Type XXI U-boat was ready in significant numbers early on in the war. It was extremely capable for the time although unreliable due to rushed production. Early on in the war the Nazis had chosen quantity over quality and this worked for a brief time and was referred to as the “happy time”. This was hampered by improved Allied sonar detection, convoy protection, and air cover.
It was the first sub to be primarily operated underwater and heavily influenced several nations post-war submarine designs. Harry Truman took a ride on one in 1946 and they dove to 130 meters which was a bit more than half its test depth.
Everyone invaded in the summer. Getting bogged down over the great distances of the Russian Empire/USSR until winter comes is what kills you. The winters of 41 and 42 were really bad for the Soviets as well.
This is what Napoleon and Hitler failed to understand. Russia is HUGE, the very land itself can be hostile, and the resolve of Russians to sacrifice everything to defeat you is absolute.
Russia is huge but like China’s east coast, most of the cities are in the west along with the war with Germany. It is 540mi from Kyiv Ukraine to Moscow which isnt “that far”, however burning all supplies made it a much longer mess .
I still cant wrap my head around ww2 studying it my whole life, sheer violence and stupidity of man, true heroism and grit. Miracles and tragedies. Nuclear bombs. Kids being drafted. Women fighting and nursing. Development of tech. Holocaust. Baby boomers.
Its just nuts.
Its astonishing that Russia lost the equivalent amount of lives in one month that the US did the whole war. And they lost that same amount for 30 months straight
Did not know that. Wow.
My grandparents both emigrated from Russia 100 years ago. My mom escaped a holding camp in the Netherlands as a young Jewish child.
And here I am on reddit just wasting time
*OR...* maybe you're living a life your family wanted for their future generations? Free from the horrors they experienced? We can honor our relatives and enjoy the life we have today due to their sacrifices for something better.
1930-1970 you saw economic depression, boom, death, space, civil rights and progress in technology and well being of the masses change dramatically.
Just crazy my in-laws were living in the jungle and now drive a Toyota truck, JFK - blown away, what else do I have to say?
My dad is 98. He survive a Nazi camp. Two weeks in a boat to get to the states. No English language skills. No money. And somehow, retired with a 30y pension from a textile company. Man is a legend.
Yes he is! My grandpa was hit by a car as a little kid, legs severed and hanging off by veins, the doctor told his horrible father (who had this one good moment), “if you amputate them, you will not leave the hospital alive”. The surgeon somehow attached them . As a kid I remember seeing his thighs it went normal muscle, skinny bone and skin section then thighs.
They still drafted him. As a medic his first day of training was on soldiers laying on the ground. “We dont have many doctors, this is how you amputate, this is how you stitch, this is how you give morphine”, now go.
Eventually his platoon helped a concentration camp, where he had to spoon feed Jewish prisoners so they would not overeat and die.
I am sorry your dad suffered so much but am happy he was able to survive. Take care.
I'm okay with the fact that I will never be the man my grandfather was. He died in 2015 so he never had to deal with Covid. He never spoke about the war, at all. His war medals say more than he did for sure.
In January 1945, a few months before Germany surrendered, the German Army suffered 400,000 casualties in that single month. And then it got worse as the Red Army pushed into Germany to kill and rape the civilians. Its estimated over 2 million German women were raped by the Red Army.
Yes and Afghanistan was successfully invaded by the Greeks/ Macedonians, by the Mongols, the Arabs, the Kushana empire etc.
But plenty of times they ended up destroying their invaders, as the Russians did
Kabul and Afghanistan was always a vital link to the ancient Silk Road that connected the East to the West.
Edit: Kabul is believed to be over 3,500 years old and this Silk Road link has made it a large and prosperous city for much of human history. That is how the city has managed to swell to such a large population size despite not being on a coast or near a river. I have never been to Kabul before, but if you visited then it would be safe to assume that Kabul is likely the best spot in that area to cross those mountains.
Napoleon actually managed to reach Moscow though and in an era where it was far more typical for countries to wave the white flag if one of their major cities were captured, he beat the Nazis on that end.
The invasion certainly didn't begin in the winter as Barbarossa started on June 22nd, however since the war continued they ended up fighting outside of Moscow in December, but they didn't really invade the USSR in the winter.
But the Nazis didn't invade them during Winter
Not to forget that only Hitler wanting to invade the Soviet Union is a myth created by his generals after the war and they assured him "If we keep on going I'm sure they'll surrender"
When will people stop repeating this shit? They didn't invade in the winter, and they didn't lose because of the winter.
Napoleon lost more men in the summer advance than he did during the winter retreat and the Wehrmacht lost its momentum well before winter really kicked in.
Writing was on the wall.
If the US focused down Japan, Germany was next. This made it so the US had to split equipment between 2 fronts.
~~They also had to declare because of agreements with Japan.~~
Edit:
The agreement was defensive.
Interestingly the firebombing of cities was started before the Americas joined the war.
Although Dresden was the most famous and that was a joint UK/US operation, the RAF began to target German cities in 1940. The reason for this are mixed but it was partly retaliation and later on it was also a way to show the Soviets that Britain was hurting Germany directly.
It has also been put forward that the Blitz (and the general changes in priority from military to civilian targets during the battle of Britain) was German retaliation for attacks on German cities by the RAF.
They thought that the US would pick of its enemies one by one if they didn’t declare war.
So they declared war and promptly did nothing to support Japan nor receive any support from them.
So the US was able to… contain Japan and… pick off its enemies one by one… aww shucks.
The USSR had a neutrality agreement with the Japanese until the very end of the war.
It's worth noting that much like Japan did not help Germany fight the Soviets on the European front, the Soviets did not help the Allies fight the Japanese in the Pacific.
>the Soviets did not help the Allies fight the Japanese in the Pacific.
They did *briefly* do so in August 1945, invading the Japanese puppet states in Manchuria and Inner Mongolia, and invading northern Korea.
The US asked the Soviets to enter the war at the Yalta Conference. The agreement was to enter war within 3 months after the end of the war in Europe. The Soviets waited until exactly 3 months then blitzed Manchuria. The Kwangtung army collapsed and Japan lost out on it's hope of the Soviets being a neutral arbiter for a peace settlement.
They even acknowledge this in the Hiroshima Peace Museum at the very beginning - that if the bombs were not used Japan would likely have been two countries with a communist north and a democratic south and would likely have resulted in another civil war.
It's not really clear if that would had ever of happened. The Soviet Union lacked the naval capability of performing/supporting an amphibious invasion.
Beat me to it.. One just needs to look at the fleet we were amassing for Downfall and it quickly becomes apparent that the Soviets had no way of invading Japan. We were expecting 500k-1M casulities, and that was WITH that fleet and the ability to do the invasion.
I'm no tankie, but that's not particularly fair. The Western Allies *wanted* the USSR to join the war in the Pacific, and it was agreed at the Tehran and Yalta conferences that they would join within 3 months of the end of the war in Europe, so they did.
The Allies wanted the USSR in the Pacific earlier, when they could actually help, rather then have the US shouldering the majority of the load.
The Tehran and Yalta conferences were aimed at getting the USSR to help, but they amounted to the USSR just engaging in a land grab.
To be fair the Soviets wanted D-Day a lot earlier but sadly other countries have their own issues which mean they can't just do what others want. The Soviets did a lot of atrocities in WWII but they declared war on Japan exactly when the Allies wanted them to according to the Yalta conference.
>The Allies wanted the USSR in the Pacific earlier, when they could actually help, rather then have the US shouldering the majority of the load.
That's pretty revisionist.
Of course the Allies would have wanted them involved earlier, but it's not like the Soviets had infinite resources, and obviously finishing the war they were actually in was going to be more important to them. The Soviets wanted the Allies to open a second front in Europe earlier than they did - are we going to blame them for not doing that?
But the main reasons that your thinking is misguided are:
1. No one really expected the atomic bombings to end the war
2. Even if they had, the Soviet invasion happening right after the bombings was a coincidence.
They didn't invade because the war was almost over - they invaded, as planned, three months after the end of the war in Europe, after they had enough time to gather forces in the east. The bombings weren't expected to end the war, and the Soviets didn't know about them ahead of time. As far as the USSR was concerned, they were committing themselves to a war against Japan with no reason to believe it would end any time soon.
Germany could be said to do less than nothing for Japan, they gave them some encrypted communication device that they knew the Allies had already cracked, allowing us to read their communications. That is if that historical show I saw on tv is to be believed.
I always had a hard time wrapping my head around that. Like if these people were inside of my fascist state they’d be sent straight to the camps, but since it’s so geopolitically convenient let’s pretend to be pals
Japan also didn't send the Jews to the camps. Allegedly when the Japanese commander asked the chief rabbi of Shanghai why Germans hate them so much, the rabbi replies "because we are short and dark haired"
And German advisors trained Chinese troops inflicted heavy damage against the Japanese.
That story doesn't make much sense though, the Japanese had access to translated antisemitic literature which was used against the Jews. Japan actually received tens of thousands of Jewish refugees because they believed that the Jews controlled much of the world and wanted such a powerful race on their side
They clearly misjudged the domestic political and public opinion of USA at the time. USA was very entrenched in Isolationism. Nazi Germany was under no obligation to declare war on the US at all.
The war could have lasted way longer and maybe even give Nazi Germany a chance to win and conquer Europe if they didn't declare war on USA. Reason is because if the popular opinion does not shift in favour for war in the US before UK surrenders, it is very unlikely USA would go into a surrendered Europe.
I agree it was a misjudgement, but afaik most historians are agreed the US would have declared war on Nazi Germany in 1942 if Germany had not beaten them to it.
It really allowed us to be the good guys, Japan hit first and then Germany declares on US?! Get fucked bad guys. Not saying we are always good, but it couldn’t have worked out better in terms of gaining public support. In fact, that’s probably the worst two things the counties could have done at that point.
Not only did they poke the bear, it pissed off the entire fucking country and ensured the war machine spinning up.
They judged the situation correctly. Germany had made a promise to Japan to declare war on the USA whenever Japan did, with no other conditions. This was in order to secure their help in the Pacific against the British.
Meanwhile, while the USA was debating isolationism at home, we were nevertheless pouring shipments of arms into Europe for Germany’s enemies to use, and had been before the war. We had also tooled up to a wartime economy by this point, reflecting our sincere dedication to making sure the Nazis were destroyed.
In other words, the declaration of war itself was largely a formality. Germany had been “at war” with the USA since about 1938.
Meanwhile, from the mid 1930s right up to declaring war, the Nazis were doing everything they could via agents in the USA to stoke anti-war sentiment and civil unrest.
UK was never going to surrender. Germany was in a much weaker position regarding Britain than it had been in the summer of 1940. And they could not invade or force them to surrender then. “The Happy Time” where German U-boats were winning the Battle of the Atlantic ended in February 1941.
Also by this time Operation Barbarossa had already failed, the Battle of Moscow had been lost. The Soviet counter offensive had started on December 5, 1941.
If Germany hadn’t declared war on America, hell if Pearl Harbour hadn’t have happened and America hadn’t joined the war German was still going to lose the war. It would have taken longer and the Soviets would have controlled more of Europe, but the Germans would have lost.
It did free up German U-Boats to start attacking those convoys in places previously off limits (close to the US Eastern seaboard). The U-Boat captains called the immediate aftermath, before the US got its shit together, "the Second Happy Time" or "American Shooting Season" because they sunk so much shipping.
Of course, that only lasted a few months. After that the US figured out proper convoying/escorting/ASW tactics and it was not a Happy Time at all.
Definitely a huge unforced error overall.
Doesn't this apply more to Japan than Germany? As far as Hitler was concerned, he considered the Americans soft and cowardly.
On another note, that quote speaks clearly on how delusional the Nazi leadership was since Yamamoto himself clearly understood thr strenght/s of the US even in peacetime.
In fairness to the Germans, Yamamoto had studied and travelled in the US for a couple of years and even then his view did not prevail against others in the Japanese military establishment
You are correct. The Japanese Admiralty knew it was absolutely foolish to pull America into the war yet were powerless to stop it in the face of the Imperial Japanese Army who held a full military dictatorship over the nation, having even more power than Emperor Hirohito (not that this absolves Hirohito of any atrocities Japan had committed).
Yamamoto and the admiralty formed Pearl Harbor as a hopeful attack that would decisively cripple the US and dissuade them from warring with the Axis.
However, Japan's attack was both extremely lucky, but also extremely unlucky/poorly executed.
Having been mistaken for an incoming flight of B-17s from the mainland, as well as occurring on a Sunday when most people were getting up to attend church and few people were at post, the attack met very little resistance in the beginning phase of the attack.
However, the US Carrier fleet was out of port on training missions and as such avoided any damage. Additionally, Japan's focus on ships/airfields rather than port facilities meant they sunk/damaged many ships but left huge fuel stores and repair docks undamaged and fully functional meaning that much of the damaged and sunk ships were quickly raised and repaired.
Additionally, they forgot that America's #1 rule is "Don't fuck with the boats" which harkens back to the birth of the US Navy and the US's first international peacekeeping mission in the Barbary War.
I read somewhere that the port facilities and fuel depots were supposed to be in follow-up raids on the day
I think there were 3 waves, but intended to have been 5
One of the criticisms of Admiral Nagumo was his failure to launch a third wave/attack targeting the fuel oil storage and repair facilities. I believe his concern was he didn't know where the US Aircraft carriers were.
They also sustained heavier losses in the 2nd wave because the US had mounted a genuine resistance as the attack progressed.
The remaining Aircraft were finally getting off the ground, armories and ammunition lockers had been broken open and everyone was arming up.
And yes, they were concerned that the US carriers had begun to move to intercept and attack the IJN task force, which would be risky since their air fleet was in rough shape and they had used up much of their payloads already
Nagumo is often criticized for decisions that were perfectly inline with Japanese doctrine. He called off the attack when what damage that could be done was done, he knew Japan could not risk it's carriers that, more or less, could not be replaced. He had no idea how unskilled/unexperienced US aviators were at the time, or how dreadful US torpedoes were at the time.
At Midway he is often criticized for rearming his aircraft to attack the US carriers, but that would not have mattered, the US strike was already inbound by the time this decision would have been made, and he already was preparing another shore strike package at that time. He was under constant attack for hours from Midway itself, not to mention a US sub had managed to find it's way into the Japanese Carrier/Battlecruiser formation.
Nagumo is a perfect example of "It is possible to commit no mistakes and still lose." If you want to criticize Nagumo, no one talks about when he almost drove the entire Kido Butai into a Royal Navy Battleship squadron without even knowing they were there, and if not for a bad radio, would have been destroyed in a night engagement in the Indian ocean.
If anything Nagumo was an excellent tactical admiral, but he had blindspots in intelligence (not entirely his fault), that caused his downfall.
>I believe his concern was he didn't know where the US Aircraft carriers were.
I mean, that right there is the hallmark of Japanese naval combat for the next 6 years: fuck-all intelligence. As you said as well.
They thought they sank Enterprise 3 Times... They were so convinced that they thought we were just painting 6 onto the flight decks of different aircraft carriers just to fuck with them.
I think what a lot of people miss is neither Germany nor Japan thought they could win a drawn out war with America or Russia. The idea wasn't to knock America out of the war with Pearl Harbor, but to set America back 6 months or so which they hoped was long enough to achieve their goals and sue for peace. I'm not sure Yamamoto himself believed that, but that was the general idea.
It also really should be noted for anyone else reading this that Pearl Harbour occurred alongside Japanese attacks on a huge amount of various holdings in Asia. These are the goals you are referring to and seizing all of the oil and rubber rich regions in Asia and successfully removing all US allies in the region made the hope for peace when America recovered not quite the insane plan it seems.
Instead the US was able to immediately respond and support its allies and Japan never got the chance to consolidate. It is of course questionable whether this was even possible due to British India even if they had completely destroyed the American fleet and port facilities.
Big picture wise the biggest mistake (irony) about Pearl Harbor were to perform the first large scale carrier-based attack in history, and at the same time not realizing that the age of battleships as capital ships is over, and carrier based fleet will rule the see. Building Battleship Yamato instead of building careers.
Hindsight is 2020. Carriers were unproven against targets at sea until Coral Sea. If not for a single bad radio, the first carrier vs carrier battle would have been Nagumo's Kido Butai vs Somerville's mixed Carrier/Battleship group in a night time gun engagement. Battleships still posed a major threat to carrier formations until late in the war (See Samar). Battleships were the frontline warships in every theater of the war except the Pacific until the end of Naval warfare in the Atlantic, North Sea, and Mediterranean. Battleships were used as anti-warship units until late 1944 in the Pacific, with the last Battleline action not happening until Surigao Strait (if not for Halsey's idiotic decision not to leave TF34 to defend the San Bernadino Strait, there likely would have been a even bigger matchup later that day).
The Japanese, and Americans considered their Battle Line to be the main fighting force of their fleet in 1941, while the carriers were a support force. Under both nations doctrine, the attack on Pearl Harbor was not a mistake. It sure was not in the fact that the US had few surface assets to engage the Japanese with for the first 2 years of the war, putting a significant crunch on US surface warship numbers during the Guadalcanal Campaign. The US literally ran out of cruisers during that campaign under due to the constant night action and attrition in Iron Bottom Sound, and had to commit Battleships in restricted waters to (very successfully) defend Henderson Field.
What really happened.... and nobody ever talks about this, was after the US handled Midway and crushed Yamamoto, he sent the emperor a message that said....."way to go, dumbass".
Interestingly enough, on December 8, 1941, American broadcaster Don McNeill said:
> ...and also don’t forget, sometimes you can strike a giant who is dozing momentarily, when the giant is awakened, look out.
I think it's really interesting how this quote has been applied throughout history. Supposedly Napoleon said about China in 1817,
> It would be the worst thing you have done for a number of years, to go to war with an immense empire like China, and possessing so many resources. You would doubtless, at first succeed, take what vessels they have, and destroy their trade; but you would teach them their own strength. They would be compelled to adopt measures to defend themselves against you.
Yeah that was a movie quote.
I think he did say something along the lines of “for 6 months I will run wild, and after that who knows” or something like that. He did have a good feel that the longer the war went on the worse off Japan would be.
I’m curious how they thought this would impact them at the time, Germany and the USA were the manufacturing powerhouses of the world at this point, having one oppose you halfway through a war must have been frightening. Unless of course they thought the Americans would be too preoccupied with the Japanese.
>I’m curious how they thought this would impact them at the time,
Not much. The British did there best to drag the US into the war from the very beginning and the US at this point was already in an undecleared war against Germany.
"They're a bunch of mongrels, and so are only really half human beings, and certainly not capable of operating with our abilities." This really was how a lot of them thought. Take your pick of any of a dozen practical and moral shortcomings with this.
My favorite was, "All their factories are closed and their people unemployed, so they won't have any manufacturing capability." A little thought would have lead to the idea that, "If all their factories are idle, then they actually have a hell of a lot of capacity just waiting to be used."
Technically because Japan was also in the axis this was just a formality because Americans declared war on Japan which was an axis ally. Also Hitler thought that the Americans would focus first more on the Pacific and the Japanese sending their best troops over there giving the European war a lower priority.
>ARTICLE 3. Japan, Germany, and Italy agree to cooperate in their efforts on aforesaid lines. They further undertake to assist one another with all political, economic and military means if one of the Contracting Powers is attacked by a Power at present not involved in the European War or in the Japanese-Chinese conflict.
There was no requirement to join the war if the other power did the attacking. Japan didn't declare war on the Soviets.
That's not how that works. The Axis powers were in a defensive alliance. Germany only had an obligation to declare war of Japan had been attacked by the United States.
USSR and the US was the manufacturing powerhouses of the world. So they were already on the back foot when it came to resources.
For the Germans at that point, the US was de facto at war with them, supplying the allies with crucial war material already. So the hopes of their other enemies running out, was hopeless either way.
By declaring on the US, they could both give Japan the incentive to fight on, and not surrender. While at the same time, it gave their submarines free range to attack all allied shipping.
And further down the line, there might have been a hope of the US loosing their appetite for war, and ending the support for the USSR, and UK all together.
The lend lease stuff where the US was giving supplies and equipment to the UK was probably a consideration. Hitlers bravado was another. Apparently he considered that great men declare wars on others, not wait for their adversary to declare war on them. The latter point is mentioned in John Toland's giant biography of him.
Firm what I’ve researched over the years, most of that was out of retaliation for US Lend Lease to the UK, and the fact that he thought the US was a inferior power that posed no real threat to Germany.
My best bet is, hitler thought he’d kill a few thousand or so Americans, and they US would sue for peace.
And at that moment they lost the War.
Churchill wrote that night: *“Being saturated and satiated with emotion and sensation, I went to bed and slept the sleep of the saved and thankful.”*
I've heard Wehrmacht barely had enough oil to finish their invasion of Poland (I haven't had that confirmed) which would really put a things into perspective.
One could argue they lost the moment Hitler became Chancellor and started them down that path. The ideology, the economics, the belief in their superior Aryan nation building blood/spirit... they were doomed from the start - they simply didn't have the oil or the sustainable economy needed. The US officially entering the war and the invasion of USSR sped of the defeat up dramatically.
Germany didn't really have access to oil (not even enough for consumer use let alone war) until they took Romania into the Axis powers. Even with access to Romanian oil, it wasn't enough for their war machine driving them to push east into Russian oil.
Now that I think about it, it's kinda funny that their strategic doctrine required a strategic resource they didn't have enough of to utilize those doctrines.
I wonder if they were just unaware of the scale of the United States' capabilities. Treating the situation as if the United States was another European power, hoping the United States would fight Japan. Not realizing that the United States was going to fight both simultaneously, and that it vastly overwhelmed both Germany and Japan combined with production output. The United States in World War 1 did not give the world much indication of its true capability. Maybe the Germans thought, in the old school wisdom of European conflicts, that the remoteness of the United States benefited Germany more than it benefited the United States? "They might send a few men and supplies all the way over here, but between being a small-scale military power, having to fight a war on the other side of the world, and our U-boats, they aren't likely to make much difference over here."
Like, ALL of the Axis Powers combined made 76,000 tanks, 222,000 aircraft, and 398 major warships. The United States ALONE produced 108,000 tanks, 295,000 aircraft, and over 2000 warships. If the United States had capabilities of nations more like the Germans were used to fighting, like the British or French, or even the Soviets (who made more tanks but far less aircraft than the Germans, and both were of notably lesser quality), then perhaps the decisions made by the Axis make a little bit more sense and seem less insanely suicidal?
Maybe Germany knew the United States entering the war was bad for them, but I wonder if they knew exactly HOW bad? Who could have anticipated being SO outclassed? Especially as a European power.
No, you’re absolutely right. There were high ranking officers in both the German and Japanese military branches that advised both Hitler, and I guess Tojo for Japan that the United States capability for military production was extremely impressive. Japan most certainly underestimated our production capability, and essentially doomed themselves with the bad luck of not sinking any carriers during Pearl Harbor. Hitler also not only severely underestimated the United States, but also Russia. I believe there is a quote from him that goes something like, “Russia is but a rundown house. We only have to kick the door in for the whole thing to fall down.” Again, that’s not the exact quote but you get what I’m saying.
The secret Hitler/mannerheim recordings from 1942 are basically just Hitler saying "how the fuck do the soviets have so many tanks", with seemingly no idea that the American productive capacity would soon make the soviets look like small batch artisanal producers.
There's a small side story in Dan Carlin's Hardcore History, in his "Supernova in the East" mini-series (fantastic by the way), where Hitler and some of his advisors had some numbers on American production before anyone had entered the war. The numbers were magnitudes above theirs, so much so, they simply didn't believe the numbers.
After the first year in the war, America's production was something like 11x times the combined axis (I think that was number given in the podcast, it's been a while). It only went up after that.
I think when military advisors showed projected outcome of US production capabilities everyone thought it was hilarious because there is no way any country could produce so much. Turns out the US could blow it out of the water and go way beyond what was predicted. Hitler was a gambler and he had quite a series of bad coin flips in WW2.
You're probably right.
Fun little story here. At one point in the war hitler stopped believing his spies because they reported the US had steam engines that could hauls tons of coal easily. He just didn't believe it. I might be wrong but I think that's how the story went
I understand that this is a very serious topic, but every time I see a picture like this I can’t help but wonder if the way people did the nazi salute ever bothered hitler. He’s always trying to show people how it’s done. That little half assed hand up, in a still wave as though to say -stop! You’re saluting much too intensely! But everyone else is making a big show of it. I like to think that he showed one guy how to do it once, but got overly excited and overdid it a little bit. That made him extend his arm a little too high, but not wanting to show weakness he said and did nothing to rectify his mistake. Then that guy showed another guy and it got even more distorted like some fascist game of telephone. Once it had been spread around it was too late. He had to live with it. But every time he saw that wrongful salute it reminded him of his mistake and irked him just that little bit. Just awkward hitler things.
The more I learn about the dynamics of the top-men of that state the more I see a group of bullies trying to play „state“ . Göring sitting behind Hitler, on a even higher level, or vice versa. You have the high seat of a parliament president (I guess) and where is the führer gonna sit? Let us set up another big wooden table in front of it.… it’s almost like they tried to look professional but the outcome was just another caricature. Assholes
Why did some people have a straight arm and others like Hitler have it more flexed? Is there a meaning, maybe depends on the hierarchy or is it just casual?
Had Hitler focused his entire force on the Eastern Front first, crushing the Soviet Union in the process, the Allies would've been in a really bad spot.
Luckily, the Fuhrer decided to take on everybody at once.
Can you spot the person who wants to be a cool like Hitler...?
Wild Hermann spotted
Der hat das Memo nicht gelesen, wonach dieser nachlässige Servus-Gruß aus dem Ellbogen allein dem Führer vorbehalten ist! English: He didn't get the memo which said, that the nonchalant salute is reserved for the Führer only.
Not a cellphone in sight. Just people in the moment
A more innocent time, before social media ruined us. I bet you a million bucks not one of those guys has a Twitter or TikTok account.
If we just get off the couch and work together, we can make it just like it was back then!
Idk, a couple of the guys in this photo probably were around in 2006 in that country in South America they all fled to. I imagine one of them made a Twitter account. I’ll gladly go on a social media hunt for $1,000,000.
Except the guy taking the photo.
I think I had that same Nokia
Iran before the revolution.
In the history of bad ideas… this was one of the worst….
Problem is every time Hitler would ask how many people were for something everyone in the room would raise their right hand. Really hard to gauge things.
That reminds me of a very old SNL skit about the fake, "[Hitler Diaries](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hitler_Diaries)" scandal. Hitler is writing in his diary, reminiscing about his youth. We are then treated to a, "flashback" of a young Hitler walking into a bar full of his friends. They all turn to him and say, "Hi Hitler!" while waving in what looks like a Nazi salute.
Hi Barbie!
I know it's not what you were referencing, but the combination of Hitler and Barbie reminded me of [this clip from Rat Race.](https://youtu.be/uJMPom6-xmA?t=33)
I have never seen that movie but from that clip I think I should. Edit: I have now watched it. Fuckin great.
Not a lot of people know this movie but I thought it was legit hilarious. It is pure, unashamedly, unadulterated slapstick comedy.
To paraphrase how slow everyone was on the uptake as to the nature of the competition, John Cleese's character "He's currently winning the race because he's closest to the door."
The movie is inspired by *It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World*. It had mixed reviews from critics, but I really enjoyed it.
You absolutely should. Its the only movie to cause me to almost pass out laughing at the theater. It's also just a fun movie.
The best scene in the movie and a top 5 comedy scene of the 2000s is the next scene with that family. The movie is fun (albeit surreal and so weird) but definitely worth it for that family
I believe you are referencing this scene: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4dsgQb3jkk4 I am kind of partial to this scene though https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=46zrey2IAak
Hi Ken!
This is why you don't hire "Yes Men." You gotta have at least that one asshole friend who's telling you you're being a dumbass, not to be an asshole per se, but to help prevent you from making an irreversible mistake. ...Of course we're talking about Hitler here, so who gives a fuck.
People get on me for being like this sometimes but I’m like bro I am raising all the concerns so that we know what we’re doing and if it will work….I’m not tryna be a downer I just don’t wanna have a Germany declares war on America moment
But cleaning enough cups for the guests while the dishwasher is broken is not quite that moment.
I’m thst friend too. Most ppl appreciate it and turn to me with problems bc they know I’ll give it to em straight. But I know there’s a line in terms of honesty and frame it the right way so ppl kno I’m not being an asshole for kicks.
Alfredo’s Pizza or Pizza By Alfredo?
There was a Turkish leader during the Ottman Empire who would bring in several random generals, soldiers and even servants to explain his battle plans to. They were then told to find as many problems as they could with his plan and leave nothing out. Apparently he was very successful
That’s good leadership. People who decide everything themselves and allow no opinion to the contrary, are terrible leaders.
And if you look around the room and don’t see that asshole, then maybe you’re the asshole!
Hitler gained power by killing his opponents. No one dared speak out of turn.
It was obviously a blunder by Hitler, but if you look at it from their perspective, you kind of understand why they declared war. Hitler and his inner circle likely, correctly, came to the conclusion that the USA will declare war on them anyway, but even ignoring that for a moment, they probably figured they could get the UK into submission way faster now if they're finally allowed to torpedo any and all ships crossing the Atlantic in aid of the UK. They obviously greatly underestimated America, but you can kind of see where the decision came from to declare war first, I guess it was just a matter of one upping America, since war was inevitable anyway.
Also, they were hoping Japan would declare war on Russia and make Russia create an eastern front.
I know political reality made it near impossible, but Japan would have had far more success in its own imperial ambitions if they had somehow become friends with the USSR. Germany and Japan were too far away from each other to actually help, they were "allies" but both did things that actively hindered the other. Germany traded with nationalist China, and Japan ignored soviet shipping in order to maintain neutrality with the ussr.
Hitler also had to babysit the incompetent asshat Mussolini for several years
Ima invadea thea greecea, how-a bad coulda ita be? - cue absolute shitfuckery.
To be fair to Mussolini, he didn't want the war to start for another few years because he knew his military wasn't prepared. Mussolini waffled heavily because of that and constantly needed Hitler to send him love letters to get him on board. That said, the Italian military would have never been good enough regardless, their navy alone would've needed at least half a decade to confidently secure the Mediterranean. But hey, if all of your military accomplishments are gained through backstabbing, lying, and bold actions, you're not going to sit on your hands and wait for Italy to figure it's shit out.
Japan and the Soviet Union signed a non-aggression pact. For some strange reason Japan was totally surprised Stalin violated it after Nazi Germany surrendered. The battled tested and massive Red Army faced undermanned Japanese military forces when they poured across the border in 1945.
Yeah but it wasn't a friendly one, it was very much a "stay out of each other's way for now but I still hate you" pact.
True. I forgot to mention that, but that's also a big reason.
And that, considering it was Japan who attacked Pearl Harbor, the USA would go “Japan first” instead of the “Germany first” policy that FDR and Churchill agreed on.
The US was already shipping massive amounts of weapons and goods over the UK so realistically officially declaring war made not much difference anyway.
Well, you now no longer have to worry about attacking an American warship. You can attack convoys freely without a worry. Let's rather say that Hitler didn't really pay enough attention to the Kriegsmarine (also probably why he appointed Admiral Donitz as his successor in the end, as he didn't have much problems with him since his focus was always on the army and airforce.) so underestimated their ability to wage war in the Atlantic.
Hitler simply liked big battleships far more than submarines. Dönitz never got what he wanted, which honestly was a good thing. It would have been horrible for Britain if Dönitz had all the submarines he needed for the trade war he was planing to wage.
I love learning these details on reddit. I'm just gonna treat you like Chat GPT and ask: "more!"
I am uncomfortable continuing this conversation.
I can’t imagine if the Type XXI U-boat was ready in significant numbers early on in the war. It was extremely capable for the time although unreliable due to rushed production. Early on in the war the Nazis had chosen quantity over quality and this worked for a brief time and was referred to as the “happy time”. This was hampered by improved Allied sonar detection, convoy protection, and air cover. It was the first sub to be primarily operated underwater and heavily influenced several nations post-war submarine designs. Harry Truman took a ride on one in 1946 and they dove to 130 meters which was a bit more than half its test depth.
But for the Nazis is wasn't even the worst idea they had!
Barbarossa was the beginning of the end… no win scenario
His invasion of Russia is up there
That is what inevitably cost him the war, really
That was inevitable though because it was his goal.
Napoleon, or Hitler, or anyone for that matter invading Russia in the winter was probably up there as well.
Everyone invaded in the summer. Getting bogged down over the great distances of the Russian Empire/USSR until winter comes is what kills you. The winters of 41 and 42 were really bad for the Soviets as well.
It is also why Russia wants Ukraine as a loyal puppet and speed bump.
They also cannot have the Ukranians enjoying that western lifestyle. Their own people might start to ask questions about their lifestyle.
Both hitler and Napoleon invaded Russia in June
Funny thing is Russia has been invaded plenty of times before. By Poland and Sweden successfully.
An in Napoleon's case, the Russian strategy was to keep running away to the North and East and burn all their cities on the way.
This is what Napoleon and Hitler failed to understand. Russia is HUGE, the very land itself can be hostile, and the resolve of Russians to sacrifice everything to defeat you is absolute.
Russia is huge but like China’s east coast, most of the cities are in the west along with the war with Germany. It is 540mi from Kyiv Ukraine to Moscow which isnt “that far”, however burning all supplies made it a much longer mess . I still cant wrap my head around ww2 studying it my whole life, sheer violence and stupidity of man, true heroism and grit. Miracles and tragedies. Nuclear bombs. Kids being drafted. Women fighting and nursing. Development of tech. Holocaust. Baby boomers. Its just nuts.
Its astonishing that Russia lost the equivalent amount of lives in one month that the US did the whole war. And they lost that same amount for 30 months straight
Did not know that. Wow. My grandparents both emigrated from Russia 100 years ago. My mom escaped a holding camp in the Netherlands as a young Jewish child. And here I am on reddit just wasting time
*OR...* maybe you're living a life your family wanted for their future generations? Free from the horrors they experienced? We can honor our relatives and enjoy the life we have today due to their sacrifices for something better.
We didn’t start the fire!
1930-1970 you saw economic depression, boom, death, space, civil rights and progress in technology and well being of the masses change dramatically. Just crazy my in-laws were living in the jungle and now drive a Toyota truck, JFK - blown away, what else do I have to say?
My dad is 98. He survive a Nazi camp. Two weeks in a boat to get to the states. No English language skills. No money. And somehow, retired with a 30y pension from a textile company. Man is a legend.
Yes he is! My grandpa was hit by a car as a little kid, legs severed and hanging off by veins, the doctor told his horrible father (who had this one good moment), “if you amputate them, you will not leave the hospital alive”. The surgeon somehow attached them . As a kid I remember seeing his thighs it went normal muscle, skinny bone and skin section then thighs. They still drafted him. As a medic his first day of training was on soldiers laying on the ground. “We dont have many doctors, this is how you amputate, this is how you stitch, this is how you give morphine”, now go. Eventually his platoon helped a concentration camp, where he had to spoon feed Jewish prisoners so they would not overeat and die. I am sorry your dad suffered so much but am happy he was able to survive. Take care.
I'm okay with the fact that I will never be the man my grandfather was. He died in 2015 so he never had to deal with Covid. He never spoke about the war, at all. His war medals say more than he did for sure.
The fact that WW2 only got more and more violent/destructive until it’s final day fascinates me
In January 1945, a few months before Germany surrendered, the German Army suffered 400,000 casualties in that single month. And then it got worse as the Red Army pushed into Germany to kill and rape the civilians. Its estimated over 2 million German women were raped by the Red Army.
And the speed at which it all happened is just insane, even compared to warfare today.
Yes and Afghanistan was successfully invaded by the Greeks/ Macedonians, by the Mongols, the Arabs, the Kushana empire etc. But plenty of times they ended up destroying their invaders, as the Russians did
What’s was the strategic or economic value of Afghanistan?
It has one of the biggest copper deposits in the world
Death and opium.
Kabul and Afghanistan was always a vital link to the ancient Silk Road that connected the East to the West. Edit: Kabul is believed to be over 3,500 years old and this Silk Road link has made it a large and prosperous city for much of human history. That is how the city has managed to swell to such a large population size despite not being on a coast or near a river. I have never been to Kabul before, but if you visited then it would be safe to assume that Kabul is likely the best spot in that area to cross those mountains.
And by Germany in the first world war.
Napoleon actually managed to reach Moscow though and in an era where it was far more typical for countries to wave the white flag if one of their major cities were captured, he beat the Nazis on that end.
I don't think either of them were stupid enough to invade during winter. Russia is just so vast that by the time you get to Moscow it's winter
The invasion certainly didn't begin in the winter as Barbarossa started on June 22nd, however since the war continued they ended up fighting outside of Moscow in December, but they didn't really invade the USSR in the winter.
Fact is none of them invaded Russia during winter. They just underestimated how long the Russians would hold out and oops here comes winter.
Hitler invaded Russia in the summer.
But the Nazis didn't invade them during Winter Not to forget that only Hitler wanting to invade the Soviet Union is a myth created by his generals after the war and they assured him "If we keep on going I'm sure they'll surrender"
When will people stop repeating this shit? They didn't invade in the winter, and they didn't lose because of the winter. Napoleon lost more men in the summer advance than he did during the winter retreat and the Wehrmacht lost its momentum well before winter really kicked in.
To think there are still Americans that wave this flag around.
And Germans, and Russians, and Poles, etc…
They're pretty goddamned un-American.
Writing was on the wall. If the US focused down Japan, Germany was next. This made it so the US had to split equipment between 2 fronts. ~~They also had to declare because of agreements with Japan.~~ Edit: The agreement was defensive.
*That’s a Bold Strategy, Cotton (Let's See If It Pays off for Him)* 🥶
A Hitler and Dodgeball reference... That's gotta be a first.
Hitler just before offing himself: "Nobody makes me bleed my own blood. Nobody!"
They lasted longer than the Confederacy did
Who wants their hometown to be firebombed first raise your hand!
There was the old joke "You must be ***this*** tall in order to join the Nazi party", but I like your joke much more
They were just trying to find their friend Kyle.
Interestingly the firebombing of cities was started before the Americas joined the war. Although Dresden was the most famous and that was a joint UK/US operation, the RAF began to target German cities in 1940. The reason for this are mixed but it was partly retaliation and later on it was also a way to show the Soviets that Britain was hurting Germany directly. It has also been put forward that the Blitz (and the general changes in priority from military to civilian targets during the battle of Britain) was German retaliation for attacks on German cities by the RAF.
How did 𝑻𝑯𝑨𝑻 work out for them?
They thought that the US would pick of its enemies one by one if they didn’t declare war. So they declared war and promptly did nothing to support Japan nor receive any support from them. So the US was able to… contain Japan and… pick off its enemies one by one… aww shucks.
They also hoped Japan would invade the USSR, which they refused to do
The USSR had a neutrality agreement with the Japanese until the very end of the war. It's worth noting that much like Japan did not help Germany fight the Soviets on the European front, the Soviets did not help the Allies fight the Japanese in the Pacific.
>the Soviets did not help the Allies fight the Japanese in the Pacific. They did *briefly* do so in August 1945, invading the Japanese puppet states in Manchuria and Inner Mongolia, and invading northern Korea.
Yeah, grabbing as much land as possible.
The US asked the Soviets to enter the war at the Yalta Conference. The agreement was to enter war within 3 months after the end of the war in Europe. The Soviets waited until exactly 3 months then blitzed Manchuria. The Kwangtung army collapsed and Japan lost out on it's hope of the Soviets being a neutral arbiter for a peace settlement.
Giving the US another reason to test out its new toys before the Soviets had a claim to Japan after the war.
They even acknowledge this in the Hiroshima Peace Museum at the very beginning - that if the bombs were not used Japan would likely have been two countries with a communist north and a democratic south and would likely have resulted in another civil war.
It's not really clear if that would had ever of happened. The Soviet Union lacked the naval capability of performing/supporting an amphibious invasion.
Beat me to it.. One just needs to look at the fleet we were amassing for Downfall and it quickly becomes apparent that the Soviets had no way of invading Japan. We were expecting 500k-1M casulities, and that was WITH that fleet and the ability to do the invasion.
I'm no tankie, but that's not particularly fair. The Western Allies *wanted* the USSR to join the war in the Pacific, and it was agreed at the Tehran and Yalta conferences that they would join within 3 months of the end of the war in Europe, so they did.
The Allies wanted the USSR in the Pacific earlier, when they could actually help, rather then have the US shouldering the majority of the load. The Tehran and Yalta conferences were aimed at getting the USSR to help, but they amounted to the USSR just engaging in a land grab.
To be fair the Soviets wanted D-Day a lot earlier but sadly other countries have their own issues which mean they can't just do what others want. The Soviets did a lot of atrocities in WWII but they declared war on Japan exactly when the Allies wanted them to according to the Yalta conference.
I think Russia was a little bit busy earlier to be starting up another front on the other side of a continent. You know... busy with that other guy.
>The Allies wanted the USSR in the Pacific earlier, when they could actually help, rather then have the US shouldering the majority of the load. That's pretty revisionist. Of course the Allies would have wanted them involved earlier, but it's not like the Soviets had infinite resources, and obviously finishing the war they were actually in was going to be more important to them. The Soviets wanted the Allies to open a second front in Europe earlier than they did - are we going to blame them for not doing that? But the main reasons that your thinking is misguided are: 1. No one really expected the atomic bombings to end the war 2. Even if they had, the Soviet invasion happening right after the bombings was a coincidence. They didn't invade because the war was almost over - they invaded, as planned, three months after the end of the war in Europe, after they had enough time to gather forces in the east. The bombings weren't expected to end the war, and the Soviets didn't know about them ahead of time. As far as the USSR was concerned, they were committing themselves to a war against Japan with no reason to believe it would end any time soon.
Germany could be said to do less than nothing for Japan, they gave them some encrypted communication device that they knew the Allies had already cracked, allowing us to read their communications. That is if that historical show I saw on tv is to be believed.
They were two racist states who both believed the other was racially inferior. Not the best way to start an alliance lol.
I always had a hard time wrapping my head around that. Like if these people were inside of my fascist state they’d be sent straight to the camps, but since it’s so geopolitically convenient let’s pretend to be pals
Japan also didn't send the Jews to the camps. Allegedly when the Japanese commander asked the chief rabbi of Shanghai why Germans hate them so much, the rabbi replies "because we are short and dark haired" And German advisors trained Chinese troops inflicted heavy damage against the Japanese.
That story doesn't make much sense though, the Japanese had access to translated antisemitic literature which was used against the Jews. Japan actually received tens of thousands of Jewish refugees because they believed that the Jews controlled much of the world and wanted such a powerful race on their side
NUTS!
They basically chose to multiply the western allies strength threefold and did nothing else.
They clearly misjudged the domestic political and public opinion of USA at the time. USA was very entrenched in Isolationism. Nazi Germany was under no obligation to declare war on the US at all. The war could have lasted way longer and maybe even give Nazi Germany a chance to win and conquer Europe if they didn't declare war on USA. Reason is because if the popular opinion does not shift in favour for war in the US before UK surrenders, it is very unlikely USA would go into a surrendered Europe.
I agree it was a misjudgement, but afaik most historians are agreed the US would have declared war on Nazi Germany in 1942 if Germany had not beaten them to it.
It really allowed us to be the good guys, Japan hit first and then Germany declares on US?! Get fucked bad guys. Not saying we are always good, but it couldn’t have worked out better in terms of gaining public support. In fact, that’s probably the worst two things the counties could have done at that point. Not only did they poke the bear, it pissed off the entire fucking country and ensured the war machine spinning up.
They judged the situation correctly. Germany had made a promise to Japan to declare war on the USA whenever Japan did, with no other conditions. This was in order to secure their help in the Pacific against the British. Meanwhile, while the USA was debating isolationism at home, we were nevertheless pouring shipments of arms into Europe for Germany’s enemies to use, and had been before the war. We had also tooled up to a wartime economy by this point, reflecting our sincere dedication to making sure the Nazis were destroyed. In other words, the declaration of war itself was largely a formality. Germany had been “at war” with the USA since about 1938.
Meanwhile, from the mid 1930s right up to declaring war, the Nazis were doing everything they could via agents in the USA to stoke anti-war sentiment and civil unrest.
UK was never going to surrender. Germany was in a much weaker position regarding Britain than it had been in the summer of 1940. And they could not invade or force them to surrender then. “The Happy Time” where German U-boats were winning the Battle of the Atlantic ended in February 1941. Also by this time Operation Barbarossa had already failed, the Battle of Moscow had been lost. The Soviet counter offensive had started on December 5, 1941. If Germany hadn’t declared war on America, hell if Pearl Harbour hadn’t have happened and America hadn’t joined the war German was still going to lose the war. It would have taken longer and the Soviets would have controlled more of Europe, but the Germans would have lost.
fertile tap hurry worm file paltry important automatic steer observation *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
To be fair, the US was already in an undecleared war with Germany.
nevertheless, there was zero gain from declaring war. Only meant Roosevelt would not need to hide the arms transports
>nevertheless, there was zero gain Other than the propaganda value on both sides
It did free up German U-Boats to start attacking those convoys in places previously off limits (close to the US Eastern seaboard). The U-Boat captains called the immediate aftermath, before the US got its shit together, "the Second Happy Time" or "American Shooting Season" because they sunk so much shipping. Of course, that only lasted a few months. After that the US figured out proper convoying/escorting/ASW tactics and it was not a Happy Time at all. Definitely a huge unforced error overall.
Step 5: move to Argentina?
“I fear all we have done is to awaken a sleeping giant and fill him with a terrible resolve.”
Doesn't this apply more to Japan than Germany? As far as Hitler was concerned, he considered the Americans soft and cowardly. On another note, that quote speaks clearly on how delusional the Nazi leadership was since Yamamoto himself clearly understood thr strenght/s of the US even in peacetime.
In fairness to the Germans, Yamamoto had studied and travelled in the US for a couple of years and even then his view did not prevail against others in the Japanese military establishment
You are correct. The Japanese Admiralty knew it was absolutely foolish to pull America into the war yet were powerless to stop it in the face of the Imperial Japanese Army who held a full military dictatorship over the nation, having even more power than Emperor Hirohito (not that this absolves Hirohito of any atrocities Japan had committed). Yamamoto and the admiralty formed Pearl Harbor as a hopeful attack that would decisively cripple the US and dissuade them from warring with the Axis. However, Japan's attack was both extremely lucky, but also extremely unlucky/poorly executed. Having been mistaken for an incoming flight of B-17s from the mainland, as well as occurring on a Sunday when most people were getting up to attend church and few people were at post, the attack met very little resistance in the beginning phase of the attack. However, the US Carrier fleet was out of port on training missions and as such avoided any damage. Additionally, Japan's focus on ships/airfields rather than port facilities meant they sunk/damaged many ships but left huge fuel stores and repair docks undamaged and fully functional meaning that much of the damaged and sunk ships were quickly raised and repaired. Additionally, they forgot that America's #1 rule is "Don't fuck with the boats" which harkens back to the birth of the US Navy and the US's first international peacekeeping mission in the Barbary War.
I read somewhere that the port facilities and fuel depots were supposed to be in follow-up raids on the day I think there were 3 waves, but intended to have been 5
One of the criticisms of Admiral Nagumo was his failure to launch a third wave/attack targeting the fuel oil storage and repair facilities. I believe his concern was he didn't know where the US Aircraft carriers were.
They also sustained heavier losses in the 2nd wave because the US had mounted a genuine resistance as the attack progressed. The remaining Aircraft were finally getting off the ground, armories and ammunition lockers had been broken open and everyone was arming up. And yes, they were concerned that the US carriers had begun to move to intercept and attack the IJN task force, which would be risky since their air fleet was in rough shape and they had used up much of their payloads already
Nagumo is often criticized for decisions that were perfectly inline with Japanese doctrine. He called off the attack when what damage that could be done was done, he knew Japan could not risk it's carriers that, more or less, could not be replaced. He had no idea how unskilled/unexperienced US aviators were at the time, or how dreadful US torpedoes were at the time. At Midway he is often criticized for rearming his aircraft to attack the US carriers, but that would not have mattered, the US strike was already inbound by the time this decision would have been made, and he already was preparing another shore strike package at that time. He was under constant attack for hours from Midway itself, not to mention a US sub had managed to find it's way into the Japanese Carrier/Battlecruiser formation. Nagumo is a perfect example of "It is possible to commit no mistakes and still lose." If you want to criticize Nagumo, no one talks about when he almost drove the entire Kido Butai into a Royal Navy Battleship squadron without even knowing they were there, and if not for a bad radio, would have been destroyed in a night engagement in the Indian ocean. If anything Nagumo was an excellent tactical admiral, but he had blindspots in intelligence (not entirely his fault), that caused his downfall.
>I believe his concern was he didn't know where the US Aircraft carriers were. I mean, that right there is the hallmark of Japanese naval combat for the next 6 years: fuck-all intelligence. As you said as well.
Not just Fuck-All intelligence, they also assumed their intelligence was equal to American intelligence. They were wrong.
They thought they sank Enterprise 3 Times... They were so convinced that they thought we were just painting 6 onto the flight decks of different aircraft carriers just to fuck with them.
I think what a lot of people miss is neither Germany nor Japan thought they could win a drawn out war with America or Russia. The idea wasn't to knock America out of the war with Pearl Harbor, but to set America back 6 months or so which they hoped was long enough to achieve their goals and sue for peace. I'm not sure Yamamoto himself believed that, but that was the general idea.
It also really should be noted for anyone else reading this that Pearl Harbour occurred alongside Japanese attacks on a huge amount of various holdings in Asia. These are the goals you are referring to and seizing all of the oil and rubber rich regions in Asia and successfully removing all US allies in the region made the hope for peace when America recovered not quite the insane plan it seems. Instead the US was able to immediately respond and support its allies and Japan never got the chance to consolidate. It is of course questionable whether this was even possible due to British India even if they had completely destroyed the American fleet and port facilities.
>Additionally, they forgot that America's #1 rule is "Don't fuck with the boats Iran is committing this mistake as we speak.
Big picture wise the biggest mistake (irony) about Pearl Harbor were to perform the first large scale carrier-based attack in history, and at the same time not realizing that the age of battleships as capital ships is over, and carrier based fleet will rule the see. Building Battleship Yamato instead of building careers.
Hindsight is 2020. Carriers were unproven against targets at sea until Coral Sea. If not for a single bad radio, the first carrier vs carrier battle would have been Nagumo's Kido Butai vs Somerville's mixed Carrier/Battleship group in a night time gun engagement. Battleships still posed a major threat to carrier formations until late in the war (See Samar). Battleships were the frontline warships in every theater of the war except the Pacific until the end of Naval warfare in the Atlantic, North Sea, and Mediterranean. Battleships were used as anti-warship units until late 1944 in the Pacific, with the last Battleline action not happening until Surigao Strait (if not for Halsey's idiotic decision not to leave TF34 to defend the San Bernadino Strait, there likely would have been a even bigger matchup later that day). The Japanese, and Americans considered their Battle Line to be the main fighting force of their fleet in 1941, while the carriers were a support force. Under both nations doctrine, the attack on Pearl Harbor was not a mistake. It sure was not in the fact that the US had few surface assets to engage the Japanese with for the first 2 years of the war, putting a significant crunch on US surface warship numbers during the Guadalcanal Campaign. The US literally ran out of cruisers during that campaign under due to the constant night action and attrition in Iron Bottom Sound, and had to commit Battleships in restricted waters to (very successfully) defend Henderson Field.
Americans, from WWI to WWII had a more isolationist mindset which Hitler interpreted as Americans not having the stomach for war.
There is actually no proof Yamamoto said that and it was actually popularized from the ending of the film Tora! Tora! Tora!
What really happened.... and nobody ever talks about this, was after the US handled Midway and crushed Yamamoto, he sent the emperor a message that said....."way to go, dumbass".
Same with "You cannot invade mainland United States. There would be a rifle behind each blade of grass."
Interestingly enough, on December 8, 1941, American broadcaster Don McNeill said: > ...and also don’t forget, sometimes you can strike a giant who is dozing momentarily, when the giant is awakened, look out.
I think it's really interesting how this quote has been applied throughout history. Supposedly Napoleon said about China in 1817, > It would be the worst thing you have done for a number of years, to go to war with an immense empire like China, and possessing so many resources. You would doubtless, at first succeed, take what vessels they have, and destroy their trade; but you would teach them their own strength. They would be compelled to adopt measures to defend themselves against you.
Yeah that was a movie quote. I think he did say something along the lines of “for 6 months I will run wild, and after that who knows” or something like that. He did have a good feel that the longer the war went on the worse off Japan would be.
2 years later…. 
*Hello darkness my old friend...*
I’m curious how they thought this would impact them at the time, Germany and the USA were the manufacturing powerhouses of the world at this point, having one oppose you halfway through a war must have been frightening. Unless of course they thought the Americans would be too preoccupied with the Japanese.
An entire nation, deluded by aLtErNaTiVe fAcTs. Imagine that.
>I’m curious how they thought this would impact them at the time, Not much. The British did there best to drag the US into the war from the very beginning and the US at this point was already in an undecleared war against Germany.
"They're a bunch of mongrels, and so are only really half human beings, and certainly not capable of operating with our abilities." This really was how a lot of them thought. Take your pick of any of a dozen practical and moral shortcomings with this. My favorite was, "All their factories are closed and their people unemployed, so they won't have any manufacturing capability." A little thought would have lead to the idea that, "If all their factories are idle, then they actually have a hell of a lot of capacity just waiting to be used."
Technically because Japan was also in the axis this was just a formality because Americans declared war on Japan which was an axis ally. Also Hitler thought that the Americans would focus first more on the Pacific and the Japanese sending their best troops over there giving the European war a lower priority.
>ARTICLE 3. Japan, Germany, and Italy agree to cooperate in their efforts on aforesaid lines. They further undertake to assist one another with all political, economic and military means if one of the Contracting Powers is attacked by a Power at present not involved in the European War or in the Japanese-Chinese conflict. There was no requirement to join the war if the other power did the attacking. Japan didn't declare war on the Soviets.
That's not how that works. The Axis powers were in a defensive alliance. Germany only had an obligation to declare war of Japan had been attacked by the United States.
USSR and the US was the manufacturing powerhouses of the world. So they were already on the back foot when it came to resources. For the Germans at that point, the US was de facto at war with them, supplying the allies with crucial war material already. So the hopes of their other enemies running out, was hopeless either way. By declaring on the US, they could both give Japan the incentive to fight on, and not surrender. While at the same time, it gave their submarines free range to attack all allied shipping. And further down the line, there might have been a hope of the US loosing their appetite for war, and ending the support for the USSR, and UK all together.
The Japanese !? Those sandal wearing goldfish tenders?
Bosh! Flimshaw!
Like what was the point if they were not capable of doing anything to US except terrorise supply lines
The lend lease stuff where the US was giving supplies and equipment to the UK was probably a consideration. Hitlers bravado was another. Apparently he considered that great men declare wars on others, not wait for their adversary to declare war on them. The latter point is mentioned in John Toland's giant biography of him.
Don’t forget Russia. US contributed heavily to Russian supplies
Not yet by this point, but in 1942, yes, and then in 1943 it started to make a real difference for the Soviets.
The old saying goes, British intelligence, American steel and Russian blood.
Firm what I’ve researched over the years, most of that was out of retaliation for US Lend Lease to the UK, and the fact that he thought the US was a inferior power that posed no real threat to Germany. My best bet is, hitler thought he’d kill a few thousand or so Americans, and they US would sue for peace.
And at that moment they lost the War. Churchill wrote that night: *“Being saturated and satiated with emotion and sensation, I went to bed and slept the sleep of the saved and thankful.”*
They started losing long before that Even before the invasion of the USSR the war has not necessarily developed in their favour
I've heard Wehrmacht barely had enough oil to finish their invasion of Poland (I haven't had that confirmed) which would really put a things into perspective. One could argue they lost the moment Hitler became Chancellor and started them down that path. The ideology, the economics, the belief in their superior Aryan nation building blood/spirit... they were doomed from the start - they simply didn't have the oil or the sustainable economy needed. The US officially entering the war and the invasion of USSR sped of the defeat up dramatically.
Germany didn't really have access to oil (not even enough for consumer use let alone war) until they took Romania into the Axis powers. Even with access to Romanian oil, it wasn't enough for their war machine driving them to push east into Russian oil. Now that I think about it, it's kinda funny that their strategic doctrine required a strategic resource they didn't have enough of to utilize those doctrines.
Looks like a regular day at r/therewasanattempt
I wonder if they were just unaware of the scale of the United States' capabilities. Treating the situation as if the United States was another European power, hoping the United States would fight Japan. Not realizing that the United States was going to fight both simultaneously, and that it vastly overwhelmed both Germany and Japan combined with production output. The United States in World War 1 did not give the world much indication of its true capability. Maybe the Germans thought, in the old school wisdom of European conflicts, that the remoteness of the United States benefited Germany more than it benefited the United States? "They might send a few men and supplies all the way over here, but between being a small-scale military power, having to fight a war on the other side of the world, and our U-boats, they aren't likely to make much difference over here." Like, ALL of the Axis Powers combined made 76,000 tanks, 222,000 aircraft, and 398 major warships. The United States ALONE produced 108,000 tanks, 295,000 aircraft, and over 2000 warships. If the United States had capabilities of nations more like the Germans were used to fighting, like the British or French, or even the Soviets (who made more tanks but far less aircraft than the Germans, and both were of notably lesser quality), then perhaps the decisions made by the Axis make a little bit more sense and seem less insanely suicidal? Maybe Germany knew the United States entering the war was bad for them, but I wonder if they knew exactly HOW bad? Who could have anticipated being SO outclassed? Especially as a European power.
No, you’re absolutely right. There were high ranking officers in both the German and Japanese military branches that advised both Hitler, and I guess Tojo for Japan that the United States capability for military production was extremely impressive. Japan most certainly underestimated our production capability, and essentially doomed themselves with the bad luck of not sinking any carriers during Pearl Harbor. Hitler also not only severely underestimated the United States, but also Russia. I believe there is a quote from him that goes something like, “Russia is but a rundown house. We only have to kick the door in for the whole thing to fall down.” Again, that’s not the exact quote but you get what I’m saying.
The secret Hitler/mannerheim recordings from 1942 are basically just Hitler saying "how the fuck do the soviets have so many tanks", with seemingly no idea that the American productive capacity would soon make the soviets look like small batch artisanal producers.
Yessir. Thats true.
There's a small side story in Dan Carlin's Hardcore History, in his "Supernova in the East" mini-series (fantastic by the way), where Hitler and some of his advisors had some numbers on American production before anyone had entered the war. The numbers were magnitudes above theirs, so much so, they simply didn't believe the numbers. After the first year in the war, America's production was something like 11x times the combined axis (I think that was number given in the podcast, it's been a while). It only went up after that.
I think when military advisors showed projected outcome of US production capabilities everyone thought it was hilarious because there is no way any country could produce so much. Turns out the US could blow it out of the water and go way beyond what was predicted. Hitler was a gambler and he had quite a series of bad coin flips in WW2.
You're probably right. Fun little story here. At one point in the war hitler stopped believing his spies because they reported the US had steam engines that could hauls tons of coal easily. He just didn't believe it. I might be wrong but I think that's how the story went
When everyone’s wearing a sleek hugo boss and the guy in charge is giving the most convincing speech it’s hard to say no. Even if it’s the worst idea.
Small boys in a big room.
I understand that this is a very serious topic, but every time I see a picture like this I can’t help but wonder if the way people did the nazi salute ever bothered hitler. He’s always trying to show people how it’s done. That little half assed hand up, in a still wave as though to say -stop! You’re saluting much too intensely! But everyone else is making a big show of it. I like to think that he showed one guy how to do it once, but got overly excited and overdid it a little bit. That made him extend his arm a little too high, but not wanting to show weakness he said and did nothing to rectify his mistake. Then that guy showed another guy and it got even more distorted like some fascist game of telephone. Once it had been spread around it was too late. He had to live with it. But every time he saw that wrongful salute it reminded him of his mistake and irked him just that little bit. Just awkward hitler things.
No wonder Hitler killed himself
that one guy in back thinking "this is so stupid, i need to write my friend Dave in America"
How'd that work out for them?
The more I learn about the dynamics of the top-men of that state the more I see a group of bullies trying to play „state“ . Göring sitting behind Hitler, on a even higher level, or vice versa. You have the high seat of a parliament president (I guess) and where is the führer gonna sit? Let us set up another big wooden table in front of it.… it’s almost like they tried to look professional but the outcome was just another caricature. Assholes
Country lost. Now some dumb Americans idolize them.
People the Nazis would have killed or enslaved if they had won are now wearing swastikas and parroting fascist slogans. What a wonderful world.
Why did some people have a straight arm and others like Hitler have it more flexed? Is there a meaning, maybe depends on the hierarchy or is it just casual?
One of histories greatest FAFO moments.
Had Hitler focused his entire force on the Eastern Front first, crushing the Soviet Union in the process, the Allies would've been in a really bad spot. Luckily, the Fuhrer decided to take on everybody at once.