+2 votes
203 views
in Science & Technology ⚡ by

Every once in a while, I just tremble that we are not under Nazi domination right now...Germany excelled in music, the arts, science, technology, athletics, education/universities, medicine, spirituality (Goethe, Rudolph Steiner, etc.)...and war!!! 

And they had this JET ENGINE plane in the works even before WWII started...although it did not really get perfected until 1944, prolly too late to make a crucial difference?


5 Answers

+3 votes
by
 
Best answer

Hitler was more interested in offense than defense.  He prioritized development of a jet bomber over a jet fighter.  By the time the Arado 234 was ready to fly, the war was nearly over and the British had become reasonably adept at shooting down V-1 rockets.  That left the V-2 as the only offensive weapon the Germans had that could fly unopposed into British territory.  If you have ballastic missiles, you don't really need a jet-powered bomber.  What Hitler really needed was a fighter that could prevent bombers from attacking the German rocket facility at Penemunde.

If Hitler prioritized the ME-262 when he had the chance, Germany could have stopped the Allies' daylight bombing raids.  The night raids would have happened anyway, but the bombsight technology of the 1940s barely worked under ideal conditions in daylight.  At night, the best that could be hoped for was picking out a city and getting bombs to fall in the general area.  Hitting a specific factory was out of the question.

If the ME-262 was deployed a year sooner, it might have been enough to prevent D-Day and keep the Allies out of Western Europe.  There would never be enough Germans to fight on two fronts, but they could have easily defended Germany, which would have forced a negotiated settlement.

In order to win the war, Germany would need the atomic bomb to serve as the payload of the V-2 missile.  But the treatment of Jews led to immigration of people like Albert Einstein and Neils Bohr.  Thanks to Hitler, many of the world's best physicists wound up working on the Manhattan Project. 

+2 votes
by

I once heard of a German officer who is supposed to have remarked that there weren't enough Germans to accomplish what they had undertaken in WW2. "So viele Heinis gibt's einfach nicht! "  (There simply aren't that many Heinies! )   :D

by

Tink, that may be as good answer as any...that Hitler lost the war rather than the Allies winning it...

I do recall that when I asked this Q in another form, you mentioned Mussolini getting in trouble and had to get bailed out which delayed the Russian offensive, wasn't that it? Again, if there had only been enough "Heinies"...to proceed with both projects...

by

Yes, Virginia, they would have had a better chance against the USSR had Mussolini not needed bailing out and had they treated the Ukrainians decently during the invasion.  The Ukrainians had no love for the Soviets after the forced collectivization and the resultant famines, costing millions of lives.

by

Tink, I saw that about the Ukraine recently...the peasants there resisted "Stalinization" most strongly, so they were treated even more cruelly.

+2 votes
by

German soldiers could not survive winter in the USSR. USSR had numerous army and good technique. Britain had colonial troops and USA had numerous army and good technique. Allies had more numerous armies than Germany and her European Allies. 

by

I know you are correct, Kninjanin...I have read that the Russian winters have defeated more than one invader!

+1 vote
by

More of a matter of too little and too late! The Germans had many advanced projects in the works including the atomic bomb and the V-3 long range rocket. But because of Hitler's blunders and horrible tactics after he took over the Wehrmacht and the Luftwaffe? They were doomed to failure.

They also had rocket planes in the prototype stage that would have been devastating to the bombers.

Between Hitler, Nazism, atrocities and lack of manpower and raw materials? They never could have won.

imageimageimage


by

Rooster, you would know if anyone would! So maybe Allied victory was not such a near miss as I have worried...the Germany advanced projects were in the works, but no way to actually bring them to completion...

+2 votes
by

The quick answer?

Geography.  The U.S. is bordered by two large oceans. 

Raw materials:  Where Germany and the Axis powers had to invade to obtain the materiel to either make, or run their war machine (reads gas, oil, & steel), America had stores of natural resources....that and the fact that our vast oceanic borders kept the raids on our war machine/factories at bay----not so the axis.  We took the war to them.

Mass production:  Borrowing models based on the Henry Ford production line of interchangeable parts....we simply overpowered the axis with our ability to mass produce guns, bullets, and beans.  We had a liberty ship going down the skid way every week.  While Germany made magnificent weapons, particularly their tanks(armor) and Navy(uboats).....they took much longer to build based on their complexity, and then, there was the matter of fuel consumption to run them, and their ability to repair them...complex equipment need complex parts to make them run again, and they simply couldn't pull one off the shelf.  By contrast, the U.S. out-produced the axis based on that Ford model.

Yamoto said it best after the attack on Pearl Harbor; "I fear we have awoken a sleeping giant......"


by

A Liberty ship every WEEK !!! I did not know that, Freeranger...plus the mass production format...remarkable.

Is this page not working?

Click here to see the recent version of this page

...