Was Hitler after total world domination, or did he just want to control Europe?

[Airlick]

Which we all are here. The most brilliant admiral Japan had was against attacking the US. And advised them not to, as he feared they would only wake up a sleeping Tiger. He had been to the US and had seen with his own eyes the huge potential of the US manufacturing as a war machine.

We are, but some people completely disregard the reality of the times and speak knowing the outcome. This is what's annoying. During WW2, people didn't know the outcome. The decisions we see as mistakes today could have been absolutely reasonable, or even the only possibilities, back then.

Yamamoto did advocate against war with USA, but at the same time he admitted there is a chance of victory given that the war is concluded with a few decisive strikes and a favourable treaty. It was reasonable, and it was probably the only possible option for Japanese given their imperialistic ideas. That plan failed in the end, but not because Pearl Harbor was a mistake, but as a result of the economical inferiority, and ultimately because of a string of bad luck and bad decision-making.

[Thoughtful Trolli]

Read above.

Human beings are very easily able to disassociate themselves from crime, tyranny, dictators, etc when a portion of them are placated and when it doesn't really affect them. For the Germans, it was pretty easy for a lot of them to just not bother noticing what was happening around them.

We should probably view that from a more comprehensible perspective that's actually related to modern times to an even more poignant degree, which would be that the Germans knew about all of it, but what the fuck were they gonna do? Get themselves and their families killed or thrown in gulags forever by their own governmental forces resisting it?

I guess once again that Russians were the best people. The crime is we don't remember any of the good ones who met such sad fates.

[caervek]

Hitler never wanted all of Europe never mind the world. Had Britain/France appeased him indefinitely instead of declaring war on him after he invaded Poland then he wouldn't have attacked them, he would most likely have invaded/annexed parts of the USSR but not Russia. Outside Europe he only got involved in Africa because his Italian allies invaded it and he had to back their play, and he only declared war on the USA because they were at war with his Japanese allies.

Despite becomming the military tactician equivalent of Leeroy Jenkins once things kicked off he was initially quite rational in his planning.

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His one big mistake was invading Russia while he was still at war with England.

Ordering Goering to stop attacking the RAF when they were about to collapse and focus on civilian targets instead, thus throwing the Battle of Britain and ruining any chance to defeat the UK.

Invading the USSR before defeating the UK and so facing a war on two fronts.

Doing it earlier than his generals wanted so his troops would arrive at Moscow in winter.

Declaring war on the USA just because Japan did (there was no guarantee that the USA was actually going to enter the European theatre otherwise).

Invading Africa to help Italy (who later switched sides)


He made more than "one big mistake", it's actually quite scary how much the outcome of WW2 revolved around his incompetence lol.

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I saw some funny clip on youtube a ways back, it was a scene with Nazis sitting around talking about their skull symbol and shit on their helmets and one Nazi looked at the other and was like: "Wait. Wait a second, are we the baddies in this war?" "OMG. We are the baddies!"
When you are fighting in war for your country.. it's hard to see yourself as the "bad guy".

Miller and Webb:

Erich: But you've gotta say, it's better than a skull! I mean, I really can't think of anything worse, as a symbol, than a skull!
Hans: (thinks) A rat's.... anus?
Erich: Yeah. And if we were fighting an army marching under the banner of a rat's anus, I'd probably be a lot less worried, Hans!

[Vhaegar]

Hitler was a god awful painter, though. All he could do was landscapes and he did that very poorly.

I don't think he was "god awful" in all honesty, nothing compared to the greats, obviously but certainly not awful.

As for the thread, dude was crazy, would have overplayed his hand due to his growing arrogance probably, was always going to end the same way, greed.

[Deleted]

How did Czechoslovakia wrong them? Luxembourg? Belgium? The Netherlands? How about Greece? Yugoslavia? Norway? Denmark? etc etc.
Greed and superiority complex, plain and simple. Maybe it started as "wanting to do what's right" but it sure as hell didn't continue long like that.

For a thousand years, 'Germany' was divided and the playthings of the french, the polish, the Scandinavians, and England.
1871 Germany was united into one, well, entity.
When they decided to fuck with that in the treaty of Versailles, it rightly pissed a lot of Germans off.

[squirecam]

Which in reality is the wrong think to think about, because the problem was when the Luftwaffe was told to 'blitz' instead of continuing with their prior goal of degrading the RAF, The RAF were on the brink of collapse when that happened. Absent effective air cover, a naval blockade could have been enacted, and its then very likely that the UK would have either been forced to surrender (well cease the war at least) or been effectively rendered moot as a fighting European entity.

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Except it had already happened. Germany already LOST the air war in 1940, before determining to attack the USSR.

If you want to go back and change Dunkirk and the air war, that is a different discussion.

But in 1941, when Germany attacked the USSR, the UK was already safe from invasion.

[Deleted]

I remember this WWII veteran being interviewed, at the end of WWII his squad was going through German offices and he found German plans for the occupation of the US and how the Nazis would divide it up. I googled for it but couldn't find it, too much WWII stuff.

And US did have a plan for the occupation of Canada and make war on UK, a good military have plans for all purposes. The Swedish military was in chaos then Germany occupied Norway, becuse the military did have loots of war case for fighting Russia but no planes for fighting or defending agenst Norway, who was a frendly nation.

[Tyrannica]

By years you mean about 15 seconds and then you decided to create a thread about it?

In my opinion, Hitler could have "conquered the world" if he had done different decisions during WW2. Like not attacking USSR before conquering Britain.

I think Hitler should have conquered Britain, then attack USSR with full force. That way the end would have been very different.

Hey I've been playing a lot of Hearts of Iron IV, I know this shit.

no, he should have attacked USSR even sooner(and that was hitlers plan, while his generals delayed him)and never bother and waste airplanes on Britain. Britain had radars. It was mission impossible to conquer it. It also got great supplies from the common wealth nations by sea. Actually submarines almost strangled britain to a defeat against nazi germany.

I also love how its said hitler did so many errors during ww2 while his generals did them, too and more major ones. The late attack at the sovjets resulted in a big defeat for multiple reasions, 1 reason is they got more time to prepare and use that lend lease to at least force a big military conquest campaign right to berlin and end Hitler.

Keep in mind nazis were during 1939/1941 the most powerful military nation in the world.(yes including udssr and usa) But when big countries put all their resources into military they not only catch up but become superpowers on their own.

In the end the primary goal was for Hitler and his germany was to become a superpower in the world, after that he would have probably died due to old age and diesease - his father did not live long either. Also it seems without Hitler who never had heirs, Nazy Germany will cease to exist anyways. Like the alexandre the great empire for example. That was only formed due to military conflicts for a small period of time.

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Ordering Goering to stop attacking the RAF when they were about to collapse and focus on civilian targets instead, thus throwing the Battle of Britain and ruining any chance to defeat the UK.

Invading the USSR before defeating the UK and so facing a war on two fronts.

Doing it earlier than his generals wanted so his troops would arrive at Moscow in winter.

Declaring war on the USA just because Japan did (there was no guarantee that the USA was actually going to enter the European theatre otherwise).

Invading Africa to help Italy (who later switched sides)


He made more than "one big mistake", it's actually quite scary how much the outcome of WW2 revolved around his incompetence lol.

Whats your sources? You know people try to blame it on the guy on the top. I know, some of his close(meaning not rommel, guderean etc) advisers and generals were not as competent.

for example:

"Invading the USSR before defeating the UK and so facing a war on two fronts."

He never viewed the UK as a threat to the nazi german empire. So this other front did not mean much. He was sure to win the war against the USSR and this would make nazi germany into a superpower. UK at that stage had to surrender or get obliterated.


"Doing it earlier than his generals wanted so his troops would arrive at Moscow in winter."

Thats outright wrong. Hitler wanted to attack the USSR 6-12 months earlier, actually. That attack that actually happened was allready delayed by his generals.

Watch some good docus or read books, i do not lie, but your sources are bad and are like goebbels propaganda made by people that wanted to blame the Fuehrer for their faults.

He made mistakes of course. But people in his positions made much more. Look at stalin. Do you really believe the USSR would have won if it would only be Hitler vs Stalin?

[Shadowferal]

Definitely had plans for the US...

[Ghostpanther]

We are, but some people completely disregard the reality of the times and speak knowing the outcome. This is what's annoying. During WW2, people didn't know the outcome. The decisions we see as mistakes today could have been absolutely reasonable, or even the only possibilities, back then.

Yamamoto did advocate against war with USA, but at the same time he admitted there is a chance of victory given that the war is concluded with a few decisive strikes and a favourable treaty. It was reasonable, and it was probably the only possible option for Japanese given their imperialistic ideas. That plan failed in the end, but not because Pearl Harbor was a mistake, but as a result of the economical inferiority, and ultimately because of a string of bad luck and bad decision-making.

Some good points. But even with the good luck, I think they would have lost. Mainly because there was no way they were going to keep up with the American manufacturing war machine. Yamamoto's advocate against a war with the US and the failure of the Japanese High Command to heed it, was what led to defeat.

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Ordering Goering to stop attacking the RAF when they were about to collapse and focus on civilian targets instead, thus throwing the Battle of Britain and ruining any chance to defeat the UK.

Invading the USSR before defeating the UK and so facing a war on two fronts.

Doing it earlier than his generals wanted so his troops would arrive at Moscow in winter.

Declaring war on the USA just because Japan did (there was no guarantee that the USA was actually going to enter the European theatre otherwise).

Invading Africa to help Italy (who later switched sides)


He made more than "one big mistake", it's actually quite scary how much the outcome of WW2 revolved around his incompetence lol.

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Some excellent points and I agree. Another one was the failure to crush the 300,000+ allied troops stranded at the beaches of Dunkirk. But I still think the biggest one was invading Russia when he was still at war with England. His generals were horrified he wanted to invade Russia and create a two
front war.

I am glad he sucked as a military strategist.

[Airlick]

Some good points. But even with the good luck, I think they would have lost. Mainly because there was no way they were going to keep up with the American manufacturing war machine. Yamamoto's advocate against a war with the US and the failure of the Japanese High Command to heed it, was what led to defeat.

Yup, there is no way Japan could have beaten USA in a prolonged war. The Japanese knew that back then. The whole idea was to crush US Pacific Fleet ASAP and hope that US didn't have enough determination to go to war for a few small isles at Pacific. Let's remember that, back then, Asia didn't host half of Earth's population (or maybe it did? I'd have to check, but I'm too lazy right now), but it was pretty much a 3rd world. Even Japan wasn't very well developed. It wasn't a crucial point on world's map, like SE China Sea is now, it didn't make up 70% of world's sea trade. Given USA's isolationist policy, the Japanese could very well have expected it to forfeit Pacific, at least partially, if they managed to destroy the Pacific Fleet.

[archimonde9999]

Hmm this is a very interesting topic.

I'm not sure but I've heard the International Bankers organized the attack on Hitler because he didn't want to pay interest ransom on the debt schemes they wanted to give to Germany (see video).

But I think Hitler probably wanted a Greater Reich

[RyanEX]

By years you mean about 15 seconds and then you decided to create a thread about it?

In my opinion, Hitler could have "conquered the world" if he had done different decisions during WW2. Like not attacking USSR before conquering Britain.

I think Hitler should have conquered Britain, then attack USSR with full force. That way the end would have been very different.

Hey I've been playing a lot of Hearts of Iron IV, I know this shit.

Not for nothing but what could Britain do to threaten Germany other than plead for more and more countries to fight them? Germany had chased them off the continent, routed them in Africa and Japan had surpassed them navalwise. Especially with the sinking of their two top of the line Battleships.

Hitler HAD to attack Russia, simply due to the fact that the Russians were taking advantage of their, short lived, Alliance to snatch a lot of the territory Germany wanted for itself. Personally I think what fucked Hitler over was the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbour. Up until that point he was making good time in Russia. It brought the Americans into the war and it also got both the Russians and English an influx of raw materials they used to fight the Germans.

If Japan hadn't attacked Pearl Harbour who knows how the world's borders would be drawn right now.

[Shadowferal]

Hitler and Stalin were a pair of mad dogs that knew that they were going to backstab the other..
Had Operation Barbarossa had started when it was scheduled, well, I suppose it's hard to imagine the "what if" here, but...I guess we're all glad they screwed that up and started it too late.
Though I do wonder if things might have been better for all concerned had it succeeded up to that point.

[Halicia]

You don't need to "conquer" the world to dominate it.

Both in reality and in the alternate "man in the high tower" reality, the victors of WW2 dominated the world.

Even in a situation like Rome where "one nation" controls the known world... there are always rivals and enemies to blame.

Heck, look at internal US politics, if politicians can't assign enough blame to the rival party... they start breaking people up into classes and blaming the rich or the poor for "stealing the sweat of your brow"...

There's always a scapegoat to be found when politicians need one.