D-Day 70 Years On

[Neil G]

Wonder if the yanks may have thrown their weight further behind the Manhattan project instead and nuked Berlin?

 

 

Im sure the United States would have done it, Japan is proof of that enough.

 

 

It’s a common assumption, but it doesn’t automatically follow from what happened in Japan. The difference with Japan was that the US was in a position to move in and occupy the entire country pretty much unchallenged as soon as Japan surrendered.

 

That obviously wouldn’t have been the case with Germany if D-Day had failed, quite the opposite. The ultimate outcome of the US nuking Berlin and the Nazis surrendering as a result could have been Stalin gaining control of western Europe. He might not have advanced into France with the risk of having his forces or one of his cities nuked, but on the other hand he might have wanted to gain as much territory as possible to offset the strategic advantage that the US would have gained through having the bomb. It would have been one hell of a face-off, the first test of nuclear deterrence even before both sides had the bomb.

 

Another scenario if D-Day had failed: if Russia had conquered Germany and looked to push on into western Europe, would we have seen the remaining German forces there join forces with the US / UK / Canada / Free French to stop the whole of mainland Europe falling to Stalin? Maybe with German commanders agreeing to allow the Allied forces into France in return for clemency and asylum after the war.

[Dan Vito Corleone]

Boss discussion this.

[Section_31]

Lets say if the Germans had won the War would it have lasted? I'm not sure it would have, Hitler in '45 had Parkinsons and beyond him lay a power vacuum with no designated heir. I think the German's grip wouldn't have lasted and as soon as Hitler was out the picture the likes of the SS and the Army would have been down each others throats. I suppose that's not to say they couldn't have identified a successor as this is all just speculation. 

 

One of the things I love is alternate history book's particularly focusing on WW2. The ultimate "what if's". Fatherland by Robert Harris is great but my favorite of the lot is "the man in the high castle" by Philip K Dick.

 

Yeah I love all that stuff. I liked the idea of the book within in a book in Man in a High Castle, The Grasshopper Lies Heavy, where the British defeated the Nazis and itself became an evil empire at odds with the Americans.

 

I also wonder how long the Reich would have lasted. I think once it had nukes under its belt it would have been pretty unassailable, you can imagine the Germans laying waste to entire cities at the merest hint of an uprising, I imagine descent would have come from within at some stage but who knows - we'd have been talking about a human race who's entire philosophy had been turned on its head in school from an early age, with no exterior power to agitate for change either.

[xerxes]

That obviously wouldn’t have been the case with Germany if D-Day had failed, quite the opposite. The ultimate outcome of the US nuking Berlin and the Nazis surrendering as a result could have been Stalin gaining control of western Europe. He might not have advanced into France with the risk of having his forces or one of his cities nuked, but on the other hand he might have wanted to gain as much territory as possible to offset the strategic advantage that the US would have gained through having the bomb. It would have been one hell of a face-off, the first test of nuclear deterrence even before both sides had the bomb.

 

Another scenario if D-Day had failed: if Russia had conquered Germany and looked to push on into western Europe, would we have seen the remaining German forces there join forces with the US / UK / Canada / Free French to stop the whole of mainland Europe falling to Stalin? Maybe with German commanders agreeing to allow the Allied forces into France in return for clemency and asylum after the war.

Intriguing.

 

I guess the air campaign, driven by the US in East Anglia would have continued, but why weaken Germany for Russia?

 

Of course the Allies were already in mainland Europe pre d day, in Italy.

 

I am not sure that Stalin had ambitions of empire beyond crushing Germany, a reasonable desire in the circumstances.

 

Britain was exhausted and broke, the Americans did not want Russia to dominate Europe, perhaps a deal with a Germany not led by Hitler might have been possible?

[Section_31]

Intriguing.

 

I guess the air campaign, driven by the US in East Anglia would have continued, but why weaken Germany for Russia?

 

Of course the Allies were already in mainland Europe pre d day, in Italy.

 

I am not sure that Stalin had ambitions of empire beyond crushing Germany, a reasonable desire in the circumstances.

 

Britain was exhausted and broke, the Americans did not want Russia to dominate Europe, perhaps a deal with a Germany not led by Hitler might have been possible?

 

Good point about Stalin not wanting to expand the Soviet Union. Eastern Europe was about the Russians wanting a sphere of influence and a bulwark against what it perceived as western aggression (as it still does now), but Stain notoriously did not want to spread Communism or expand Soviet borders, in direct contrast to Trotsky.

 

Begs the question what would have happened though, a Western Europe quite simply in ruins?

[xerxes]

Begs the question what would have happened though, a Western Europe quite simply in ruins?

Invasion "sorted" Vichy France and the collaborators in Holland and Belgium.

 

A settlement, or Russia stopping having over run Germany, would have left some interesting situations.

[cochyn]

Had D Day failed would it have hastened progress on project Manhattan an need it's deployment in the Pacific theatre (I highly doubt they'd nuke mainland europe - many Americans were still either first or second generation European immigrants)? Such a move would undoubtedly stopped the Nazs at the Russians in their tracks, giving the Allies carte Blanche to liberate Europe unopposed.

 

It's fascinating even to speculate, let alone what actually happened.

[Neil G]

Intriguing.

 

I guess the air campaign, driven by the US in East Anglia would have continued, but why weaken Germany for Russia?

 

Of course the Allies were already in mainland Europe pre d day, in Italy.

 

I am not sure that Stalin had ambitions of empire beyond crushing Germany, a reasonable desire in the circumstances.

 

Britain was exhausted and broke, the Americans did not want Russia to dominate Europe, perhaps a deal with a Germany not led by Hitler might have been possible?

 

 

Good point about Stalin not wanting to expand the Soviet Union. Eastern Europe was about the Russians wanting a sphere of influence and a bulwark against what it perceived as western aggression (as it still does now), but Stain notoriously did not want to spread Communism or expand Soviet borders, in direct contrast to Trotsky.

 

Begs the question what would have happened though, a Western Europe quite simply in ruins?

 

 

Even if Stalin wasn't actively looking to expand the USSR, I reckon if there had been significant numbers of German forces left in western Europe after the fall of the Reich, he'd have been minded to push on and take them out of the picture, to prevent any possibility of them regrouping and launching their own D-Day to retake Germany.

 

A lot of the surviving German forces would have hightailed it to France once it was obvious that Germany was lost (an option they didn't have with the way the war actually panned out), to join those that may have been left there to defend against another US/UK invasion attempt. I doubt Stalin would have been comfortable leaving them there. And if he'd got control of France and the Benelux countries I suspect it would have become a pretty permanent arrangement before too long.

[KopOut]

It would have been interesting to see what would have happened had they got any kind of foothold if Operation Sealion had got any kind of hold. How would we have resisted? Would we have resisted? Would we really have fought to the last man?

 

Had they bumped us off, would they have gone on to conquer the world? Would it still be the case now?

There is actually a theory that Hitler was America's man. I've never subscribed to it, but J.P. Morgan and other American banks bailed out a bankrupt Nazi Party back in the early1930s.

 

The theory goes that Hitler was supposed to take Poland, and then immediately go into Barborossa, or it's equivalent, grabbing Russia much earlier than '41.

 

There were business connections between USA and Germany, and the great threat of communism was the real fear of 'the american way'. Not only did Morgan help bail the Nazis, but IBM supplied the machines for toting the death camps - these are facts, but I doubt the underlying conspiracy myself.

 

I'm mentioning all this because WW2 for me, was mainly this titanic struggle between the two regimes of Nazism and The Reds. IMO they were always going to face off on a huge scale.

 

Back to your scenario.

 

If Sealion established a beachhead, with the BEF in captivity, Britain would have NO army to defend herself. On top of this, if the early BOB strategy had continued, she probably would have a severely depleted airforce with little infrastructure to support one ( certainly in the south and south east) PLUS with a greatly expanded Uboat fleet in 'the happy times' instead of wasted capital ship expenditure, effectively Britain's shipping would have been pummelled and supplies starved.

 

Only the Royal Navy would have any clout.

 

Two questions remain however.

 

1. Would America intervene, and if so how?

 

2. Would Stalin sit biding his time, or open a second front?

 

The crux for Germany, no matter how you look at it, was its inability to fight a war on two fronts.

[Dan Vito Corleone]

History is even fantastic when you don't know what would have happened in alternative scenarios.

[aws]

If D-Day had failed, I think the Russians would have still reached Berlin but maybe a year later and Hitler would still have shot himself or been overthrown.

 

 One difference would have been that the Nazi "peace faction" would still have had a realistic foot-hold in Europe to negotiate a separate peace with the Western allies and I think the USA would by this time have seen the USSR as the bigger threat, would have signed up to it and forced the USSR to stop its advance. We'd have ended up with the same cold war but the iron curtain would have been a few hundred miles further West and the likes of Austria would probably have been behind it. 

[Dan Vito Corleone]

I agree that Hitler wouldn't have lasted much longer. His own men were trying to blow him up a year beforehand.

[VladimirIlyich]

Read a strange fact that almost all battles and wars are won by the side with the best Latrines.

[Section_31]

One of the things that's interesting about the war is what was achieved by the notion of strong leadership and direction. Stalin and Nazi aggression galvanised the Soviet Union from a feudal agrarian state into an industrial powerhouse, Hitler did the same, the United States awoke from its depression and likewise became an industrial powerhouse. Britain managed to stave off invasion and deployed radical technology like Radar and the Spitfire when it was in its hour of need. 

 

One of the things which influenced Labour policy post war was the notion that war had been won through planning, and that society could be advanced through planning in a similar way, mass house building programmes, the  NHS,  the state taking charge of the peace just the way  it had taken charge of the war. Thatcher was terrified by this and said it was a slippery slope to an 'Orwellian nightmare'. 

 

It shows you though, what necessity and strong leadership can do to a country relatively overnight, from cavalry and cannons to rockets and atomic weapons in six years. 

[Stu Monty]

 

One of the things that's interesting about the war is what was achieved by the notion of strong leadership and direction. Stalin and Nazi aggression galvanised the Soviet Union from a feudal agrarian state into an industrial powerhouse, Hitler did the same, the United States awoke from its depression and likewise became an industrial powerhouse. Britain managed to stave off invasion and deployed radical technology like Radar and the Spitfire when it was in its hour of need. 

 

One of the things which influenced Labour policy post war was the notion that war had been won through planning, and that society could be advanced through planning in a similar way, mass house building programmes, the  NHS,  the state taking charge of the peace just the way  it had taken charge of the war. Thatcher was terrified by this and said it was a slippery slope to an 'Orwellian nightmare'. 

 

It shows you though, what necessity and strong leadership can do to a country relatively overnight, from cavalry and cannons to rockets and atomic weapons in six years. 

 

 

...and yet over a decade into the War of Terror we still have to take our fucking shoes and belts off at the airport.

 

Where's the mother of fucking invention there, eh?

[Nunavut Patrick]

...and yet over a decade into the War of Terror we still have to take our fucking shoes and belts off at the airport.

 

Where's the mother of fucking invention there, eh?

Got to keep the populace afraid.

[xerxes]

One of the things which influenced Labour policy post war was the notion that war had been won through planning, and that society could be advanced through planning in a similar way, mass house building programmes, the  NHS,  the state taking charge of the peace just the way  it had taken charge of the war. Thatcher was terrified by this and said it was a slippery slope to an 'Orwellian nightmare'. 

 

It shows you though, what necessity and strong leadership can do to a country relatively overnight, from cavalry and cannons to rockets and atomic weapons in six years.

I agree that war facilitated incredible technological leaps forwards, a combination of necessity and will. That confidence certainly energised post war thinking.

 

Thatcher was right to be sceptical of the benefits of a command economy which served the Soviets, East Germans and Chinese so poorly post war.

[VladimirIlyich]

I agree that war facilitated incredible technological leaps forwards, a combination of necessity and will. That confidence certainly energised post war thinking.

 

Thatcher was right to be sceptical of the benefits of a command economy which served the Soviets, East Germans and Chinese so poorly post war.

WTF?

[xerxes]

WTF?

By any measure, the command economies of Russia, East Germany and China were out performed by the free market economies of the west post war. In China more died from the command economy induced Great Famine than died in the whole of Western Europe in the second world war (Frank Dikotter).

[Rico1304]

By any measure, the command economies of Russia, East Germany and China were out performed by the free market economies of the west post war. In China more died from the command economy induced Great Famine than died in the whole of Western Europe in the second world war (Frank Dikotter).

On one of the D-Day programmes last week they interviewed a tank commander who said that his platoon of 10 tanks was supplied by over 100 other tanks, and that once he went through 5 in a day.