Was WWII....

[Das Morbo]

    Foreigner

    Sgt Jasper, Weasel,

    I have to respectfully disagree with your disagreement.


    As for Sealion - Hitler would have to decidedly win the aerial Battle of Britain, then neutralize the Home fleet, then muster enough logistical capability to support an effective invasion effort - I would say this is a series of increasingly improbable events.  The only thing that would help him would be a catastrophic breakdown in British morale, which I honestly don't see enough supporting evidence for.  The risk-reward trade-off just isn't favorable enough for Germany, especially considering that the main prize was the Lebensraum in the east, and any delay with Britain means there would be more time for Stalin to prepare.


My historical analysis goes as this:

In 1940 Germany was very very cloes to win the decisive victory of the war. In the Battle of Britain the Luftwaffe bombarded RAF infrastructure and hat Fighter Command on its knees. Some sources say, RAF Fighter Command was just weeks from collapse. But then Bomber Command did one raid too many on Berlin, Hitler got mad and ordered retaliation against London. This allowed Fighter Command to rebuild.

Thus he botched up that victory.

Now lets consider the consequences of German total air superiority over England in 1940.
First of all, the German Luftwaffe could have started to bombard war factories. Thus lessen the output for sorely needed heavy weapons - the British Army had lost virtually all its heavy equipment in Dunkirk.
Secondly they could have interdicted effective Royal Navy operations by heavy units, leading to high attrtion rates among those units who tried daylight operations around the English coast.
And last but not least air operations against the inbound convoys could have taken place on a whole new level.

Consequences from that:
To me it seems this could have meant Operation Sealion could have taken place successfully and aside from Militia-Style units with rifles and grenades, the British Army had not much to resist the German Army which was at peak effectivness. This would have meant the end of the British Empire in Europe.

German attack on the Soviet Union:
Without the huge support of the Western Allies, the Soviet Union would not have survived 1942. The Red Armys logistical arm was nearly completely sponsored by the Western Allies plus they got some 8000 tanks IIRC. This support originated from Canada, the UK and the US and it was ferried in vie the northern Atlantic route or the Middle East. Both areas would have fallen to Germany if the UK had collapsed.
Things would have looked very bleak for the Soviets.

The outcome:
Germany would have taken control of the whole of Europe with no jump-off base for the US to launch an counter-invasion. It would have been a stalemate. The German Reich would have no chance to defeat the US and vice versa. The cold war would propably have taken place between the US and the German Reich.

Now think of some power-crazed Nazis with nuclear weaponry at hand in a standoff with the US....... oh boy.


As a German, I get the kreeps when I think of an Europe under 40-50 years of political and cultural influence by the Nazis. They had no realistic political concepts, just their freaked-out ideology based on power and hatred.
I am a free-minded guy who thinks for himself... In Nazi Europe I would have either been brainwashed until perfectly in-line or or tortured and murdered in a KZ (think '1984' here)

Good things turned out the way they did.