This is the first in a series of five articles providing critical analysis as to how Germany Might Have Won World War Two.
Last month marked the 80th anniversary of the outbreak of World War Two which cost the lives of an estimated fifty to sixty million people and was the most terrible war in world history. We all know how the war turned outwith an overwhelming Soviet-Western Allied victory over Nazi Germany ending with the destruction and dismemberment of Germany herself and the death by starvation of millions of her citizens. Given the way the events of the war played out there was no other foreseeable outcome other than her defeat. But as most historians are aware German defeat in the war would have been far from inevitable had Nazi leader Adolf Hitler refrained from making certain critical mistakes. This series of articles represents an attempt to summarize the top mistakes and omissions which Germany made that cost them victory in this greatest and most terrible of all wars in human history. Of course the best way for Germany to have won World War Two was for them to have avoided fighting Britain France and the United States of America altogether. Germany had the military potential to defeat France and likely force Britain to make peace but with a Navy less than one-sixth the size of Britains it had no means to even attack U.S. territory let alone defeat it. Here are some actions that Germany might have taken to achieve their territorial objectives without having to fight the Western Powers of Britain France and the United States of America:
Accept British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlains offer of a second Four-Power ConferenceIt is a little known fact that Hitler passed up a huge opportunity to satisfy his few remaining territorial demands after the signing of the Munich Pact for the return of the free German city of Danzig and/or the Polish Corridor along with some former German colonies in Africa and the Pacific without the need for war between Germany and Poland let alone between Germany and the United Kingdom and France. In announcing he had achieved peace in our time" at Munich in September 1938 Chamberlain revealed his belief that the Munich Agreement was just the prelude to a second and much more comprehensive Four-Power Peace Conference between the UK France Germany and Italy. His intended purpose of this second conference would have been to redress Germanys remaining legitimate grievances stemming from the unjust Treaty of Versailles and thereby secure a more just and lasting peace to avert the potential outbreak of a Second World War.
Hitler could have accepted Britains generous offer and scheduled the conference for late 1938 or early 1939 before he foolishly violated the Munich Pact in March 1939. He could then have requested the return of all of Germanys lost eastern territories from Poland. After this proposal was rejected by the Poles he could have demanded the return of merely Danzig and the Polish Corridor perhaps with some of the same assurances to the Poles offered by the German delegation at Versailles in 1919 namely to allow the Poles a road/rail corridor to the German port of Danzig just as he offered Poland in actual history. Britain and probably France as well would have likely pressured the Poles to accept such a reasonable compromise proposal and informed them they would not support Poland militarily if Poland rejected it just as they told Czech leaders after Munich. It is also possible and perhaps even likely that without the promise of Allied military support Poland would have agreed to cede the rest of West Prussia and perhaps even East Upper Silesia but not Posen to Nazi Germany in order to avoid war. Thus Hitler could have achieved the last of his territorial objectives without war with the exception of those pertaining to the Soviet Union. At the same time Italian dictator Benito Mussolini could have made demands for France and Britain to honor their promises to Italy for more Yugoslav territory in return for entering World War One on the side of the Allies. These territorial claims included the entire Istrian peninsula and northern Dalmatian coast and adjacent islands in the Adriatic Sea as well as a protectorate over Albania all of which they ended up annexing following the Axis invasion of Yugoslavia in April 1941.
The effect of such a negotiated settlement might have been a long-term peace for Europe (with the exception of Hitlers plan to invade the Soviet Union of course) likely transforming both Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy into mostly satisfied rather than revisionist powers generally supportive of maintaining the British-led world order. This of course was the ultimate objective of Chamberlains accomodationist policy of Nazi Germany all along. Strangely Hitler did not appear interested in convening such a Four Power Peace Conference. Had Hitlers claims against Poland been negotiated peacefully not only would he have succeeded in averting the outbreak of war with Poland and the Western Allies but he would not have felt the need to sign the Hitler-Stalin Pact of August 1939 carving up eastern Europe between Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union. Whether Stalin would have still invaded and annexed the Baltic States eastern Finland eastern Poland and northeastern Romania from 1939-1940 is unclear. However it is likely he would have invaded all of those nations at some point during the 1940s regardless of what Hitler did or did not do since his massive expansion of the Red Army was completed by June 1941 by which time the Soviet Union boasted seven times as many tanks and four times as many combat aircraft as Nazi Germany.
Dont violate the Munich Pact by occupying the Czech provinces of Bohemia and Moravia--After demanding Slovakia declare independence Czech President Emil Hocha traveled to Germany to meet with Hitler and request a German guarantee of the Czech Republic. Instead Hitler strong-armed Hocha to sign a decree authorizing the entry of German troops into his nation effectively ending Czech independence after which he sent troops to occupy the Czech Republic on May 15 1939 in flagrant violation of the terms of Munich Pact. If Hitler had accepted Czech President Emil Hochas request to make the Czech Republic a German protectorate without actually occupying it with German forces he would not have been in violation of the Munich Pact.
It is hard to overestimate the negative impact Hitlers foolhardy violation of the Munich Pact had upon Chamberlain. After all the euphoria in London and Paris over the avoidance of war with Germany in 1938 with the Munich Agreement which enshrined the Wilsonian principle of self-determination to allow the 3.5 million Germans in the Sudetenland to unite with Germany Chamberlain viewed Hitlers violation of the pact as a personal insult and breach of honor. This caused him to do an about face and guarantee Poland against potential German military aggression which Hitler had never even contemplated up to that point causing Poland to refuse all of Hitlers subsequent attempts to negotiate the return of this Polish occupied German city. This abrupt reversal in policy ended up triggering a world war which would cost over fifty million lives dragging the French into the war along with Britain less than six months later. Had Hitler not violated the Munich Pact and had he instead used a Four Power Conference to settle his claims to the Polish Corridor with Poland without war he might have been remembered as the most successful German Chancellor in German history with the exception of Otto von Bismarck for accomplishing the never-before realized dream of a united Germany. Instead he is universally despised as the German leader who not only killed five million Jews in the Holocaust but also presided over the destruction of Germany herself in 1945.
Only occupy the Polish Corridor not all of western Poland--On September 2 1939 the day after he invaded Poland Hitler offered to withdraw from all of Poland except for the Polish Corridor which constituted scarcely more than 4 of Polish territory in order to avoid war with Britain and France. Unfortunately his offer was ignored by Allied leaders who proceeded to declare war the following day. However if Germany had limited itself to liberating the Polish occupied German city of Danzig and invading the Polish Corridor which represented the full extent of his territorial claims on Poland and which it captured in the first four days of fighting he could have then requested an armistice from Polish leaders on September 5th. The Poles would likely have accepted their peace offer after the Soviets invaded Poland on September 17th in order to defend Poland from the all-out Soviet invasion and planned Soviet annexation of nearly two-thirds of Polish territory under the original Hitler-Stalin Pact. The Allies then likely would have followed suit by making peace with Nazi Germany as well thus ending World War II after a mere two weeks of fighting. Indeed Polish leaders feared that had Hitler done this Britain and France would never have declared war on Germany at all.
Having to only fight a one-front war against the Soviet Union might have enabled the Poles to hold out for a few months instead of a few weeks against the Soviet onslaught perhaps resulting in a few hundred thousand more Red Army casualties. This in turn would have delayed the Soviet invasion of Finland until 1940. Peace with Nazi Germany would have opened the door to a major Anglo-French military intervention in the Russo-Finnish War consisting of 150000-300000 troops which might have enabled the Finns to hold out until spring 1941 when Operation Barbarossa began if not retake lost territory. This in turn might have led to the curious prospect of Nazi Germany France and Britain fighting on the same side however briefly in a war against the Soviet Union. This series of events also would have almost certainly led to a German-Polish alliance against the Soviets that Hitler had long sought for as the Poles would have had no choice but to ally with Nazi Germany if they had any hopes of ever regaining the two-thirds of their territory which had been annexed by the Soviets under the terms of the original Hitler-Stalin Pact. Poland would most likely have joined in the German-led invasion of the Soviet Union in exchange for promises for Germanys support for the return of these lost territories.
Even if Hitler had invaded western Poland and only annexed the territories that Germany lost to Poland in treaty of Versailles and immediately pulled German troops out of the rest of Poland then Britain and France might well have accepted his subsequent peace offer of October 1939. Since Hitler had tried to get Poland to ally with Germany from 1934-1939 unsuccessfully and since he had included a commitment to an independent Polish state in nearly all of his peace offers to the Allies from 1939-1941 he should have then demonstrated his sincere desire for peace with Britain and France by granting Polish independence himself. One of Hitlers biggest mistakes was that he never followed through on his legitimate peace proposals with Britain and France by taking unilateral action to show they were serious except at the worst possible moment for the Germans when he opted to spare the BEF at Dunkirk as shall be shown later in this series.
The
next installment of this series focuses on the importance of Hitler waiting to risk war with Britain & France until the German Army was fully ready for war.
© David T. Pyne 2019
David T. Pyne Esq. is a former U.S. Army combat arms and H.Q. staff officer with a M.A. in National Security Studies from Georgetown University. He currently serves as a Vice President of the Association of the United States Armys Utah Chapter and as Utah Director of the EMP Task Force on National and Homeland Security. He can be reached at
[email protected]
