OT: World War II started 80 years ago today....

[peanutgallery]

Operation Barbarossa was the biggest folly of the war

Originally Posted by cnighbor1

Consider this If Germany never went into Russia and left England alone
USA would never have gotten into W11 and Europe would have been all in Germany and Italian control
We were coming out of recession and without the need to go to war would have taken decades to even get a bit close to Germany’s economy power house

[Rada]

Originally Posted by cnighbor1

Consider this If Germany never went into Russia and left England alone
USA would never have gotten into W11 and Europe would have been all in Germany and Italian control
We were coming out of recession and without the need to go to war would have taken decades to even get a bit close to Germany’s economy power house

Churchill was not to keen on making peace with Germany so I don't see how they could have just left them alone. The US was drawn into WWII by Japan. Even before Pearl Harbor, FDR was ramping up the US for war in Europe. Things might have played out differently if Germany had not invaded the USSR, but probably just a bit drawn out. Germany was not the economic powerhouse during the war that most people think.

[martl]

Originally Posted by Rada

Germany was not the economic powerhouse during
the war that most people think.

I got taught in school history lesson that Hitlers spending ever since he came to power in '33 - mostly for the military, of course - was completely unsustainable. He practically *had* to start a war, the other option was bancrupcy.

[Mark McM]

Originally Posted by cnighbor1

Consider this If Germany never went into Russia and left England alone

These are kind of moot points. Germany long had a policy of Lebensraum (elbow room) which called for expansion to the east, and because the Soviets were the political enemies of the Nazis, invasion of the USSR was inevitable. And as far as England, it was more a matter of England not leaving the Nazis alone - the Nazis never wanted war with England to begin with. The Nazis were likely capable of conquering England if they wanted to, but they didn't dedicate the necessary resources. Instead, they were concentrating on their upcoming invasion of the USSR.

[redir]

And if you think about it, it never really ended.

[Rada]

Originally Posted by Mark McM

These are kind of moot points. Germany long had a policy of Lebensraum (elbow room) which called for expansion to the east, and because the Soviets were the political enemies of the Nazis, invasion of the USSR was inevitable. And as far as England, it was more a matter of England not leaving the Nazis alone - the Nazis never wanted war with England to begin with. The Nazis were likely capable of conquering England if they wanted to, but they didn't dedicate the necessary resources. Instead, they were concentrating on their upcoming invasion of the USSR.

Completely agree about Germany going to war with the USSR, it was a matter of when not if. Not sure Germany could have successfully invaded the UK. The British navy early in the war had destroyed or neutralized Germany's surface fleet. The U-boat war was over-hyped. Germany failed to gain air superiority during the Battle of Britain and was being outproduced in aircraft production at a 2:3 clip by Britain by the end of 1940. Lack of raw materials limited Germany's production throughout the war. Even at it's height, Germany's army was not very modern.