I am fully aware that hundreds and maybe thousands of books have been written on the subject of how and why Germany lost the war and I myself have read several of those but n my view, I think all of it comes down to exactly two monumental mistakes Hitler made in 1941.

1. His invasion of the USSR
2. His declaration of war on the USA


Once Germany was at war with the UK and its entire Commonwealth, the USSR and the USA , victory would simply be decided by economics and manpower. Starting in 1942 the Allies had advantages in both and by 1943 it would be an overwhelming advantage and by 1944 Germany would be hopelessly outclassed even though Germany itself was at the peak of its industrial production.

And that he was an idiot when it came to tactics and the use of technical superiority. Bigger is not necessarily better (when it comes to Tanks) and to have the first Jet Fighter and it is superior to the Allies fastest fighter (so put Bombs and an enormous artillery cannon on it) The most Evil man on Earth was a Moron, think about that today.

I've wondered what would have happened if Hitler had, instead of invading Poland/France, attacked Russia via the southeast through Romania and Hungary.

Adolph was informed by his Advisors, who had been to Russia, that they had enormous factories with thousands of tanks on the lines. He brushed it off as exaggerations.

True but I am thinking of a scenario where the UK/US do not send aide to the USSR, in which case Germany almost certainly wins.

Crazy Brazilians entered the war, germans lost their cool to a bunch of green soldiers untrained and not fitted for war in the cold. adolph was told you are going to brazil and hid in the bunker.
also there is no way the russians had that many factories, pure propaganda, there are like 12 tanks in footage of battle of kursk

There's always one "comedian" whenever a serious subject is raised.

Speaking of Brazil, I remember reading a book on the Italian campaign a few years ago where it was mentioned that about 100,000 Brazilian soldiers were involved in Italy. I admit that I was unaware of that at the time.

you dont say? how is them apples ?

The British and French declaration of war after the invasion of Poland was somewhat unexpected after the experience with the Czech annexation.
In Norway they acted about a day before the Brits would have arrived.

The invasion of the USSR was always the mission and the goal, "Lebensraum" and resources, especially oil.

The lend-lease aid was already flowing before the the USA officially entered the war - maybe more of a reason for the declaration of war. By then very few US ships were sunk, Pre-WW2 US Navy engagements, and US Merchant Marine 39-41.

As for an invasion of Russia without taking Poland, that seems to be a logistical nightmare.

china sea, by this time the japan was already ousted from there no ?

Arguably, there was no China Sea even before Japanese hostilities with the western allies started, as Japan held Korea, a puppet state in norhtern China (Manchukuo), most of the Chinese coast to and beyond Hong Kong, the islands of Hainan and Formosa (nowadays Taiwan), and even parts of French Indochina (nowadays Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos).

In my imaginary scenario Germany doesn't invade Poland therefore UK/France don't declare war on Germany hence no reason for lend/lease.

Instead Germany attacks southeast via Czechoslovakia, Austria, Hungary, Romania toward Russian oil production in the Caucasus.

Would the US/UK come to Russias aid under these conditions? Maybe, maybe not.

Both Hungary and Romania were Axis members during the war so your hypothetical scenario makes sense. The security guarantee offered by France and Britain was to Poland and Poland only so my belief is that they would not have declared war had Hitler decided to invade the USSR via your hypothetical route.

I seem to recall seeing a RTS on Steam recently for a WWII simulation without US involvement.

Interesting indeed to see how that would have played out. Had Hitler not invaded the USSR, the war in Europe would have been exactly that, a European war. It would have just been the British Empire against Germany and Italy. It would have been a stalemate war in my opinion since Britain alone was not strong enough to defeat Germany and Italy.

I do believe that Hitler was beholden by his Wonder Weapons that were in development, and he thought they were available when in reality they were experimental. This clouded his reality.

Question is what the Japanese would do - would they still attack Pearl Harbor? The spiral of Japanese aggressions and US sanctions already started earlier with the Japanese actions in China, and eventually followed by French Indochina. The sanctions were apparently so successful that the Japanese were running out of oil. Unlikely that they could have gotten any (let alone enough) from a Russia in peace. So what's considered the main reason for the Japanese attack is still just as valid as it was historically. However, with Russia historically engaged in Europe, that also gave Japan some assurance that their northern borders are safe. If that was not the case, would that be enough deterrence for Japan to not attack PH? I have my doubts, because the fundamental economical situation basically forced them into that action - their line of argumentation, and it does not change with or without Barbarossa.
But would Germany declare war to the USA after PH? It's a bit of a mystery why they did historically, so whatever their argumentation was, it probably would also still hold, or not...

As for North Africa - without Barbarossa there become a lot of forces and resources available. But the logistics with shipping, harbor and (rail?/truck) transport capacity would still limit the amount of forces that could be transported and supported in theater. But probably still enough to decisively tip the tide into axis favor. Maybe in the longer run taking full control over the Mediterranean Sea. To be honest, I am not sure how much of an impact that would really have, because I assume that most of the logistic shipping was anyway routed around Africa or the Americas... Oil from the middle east wasn't much of a factor yet, that was mostly explored after WW2.

But in the end it's mood, because attacking Russia was always the main goal, for ideological as well as economical reasons...

Invading Russia was a mistake, but in my view mostly because Germany was already at war. An interesting thing to consider is how things might have gone if Germany had turned east first. Germany was never going to have the manpower and industrial capacity to successfully fight the multi-front war they found themselves in.

They would have fared better had they stuck to one front or the other obviously. But to conduct Barbarossa while already committed in the west was a huge gamble, and as it turned out, a bad one indeed. Still, they came close to winning in Russia, but in retrospect it's hard to know what that win condition actually was. The fact that the regime did not collapse is pretty astonishing in itself, that Stalin was able to remain in power despite his many failures. It's easy to cite German operational mistakes made in 1941 that could have seen different results had they taken the alternative. But then, even if they captured Moscow in 1941, would that have meant war over? Debatable given what we see actually happened.

Germany's armed forces were not ready to attack Russia in 1939 or 1940 (and were not in 1941 for that matter). But Russia was in even worse shape at that time, and has been discussed above, this scenario might see Russia on an island, and alone they might have lost. Lend lease was a massive boost. People tend to focus on the aircraft and armor. But it was things like boots, and food and trucks that were the real benefit of this in my view. Without this, Russia would have not been able to win I don't think, and surely they would not have been able to sustain the counter offensives that ultimately won back their ground even if they had managed to stabilize the front lines.

It's an old truism that amateurs discuss tactics while professionals talk logistics, and it's evident that logistics are both what lost Germany the war in the east, and won it for the Russians. Germany had ascendancy over the Russian in almost every way. Troop and material quality. Tactics. Weapons. Leadership. Morale. But they failed to supply their armies, which led to bogging down of course and allowed the Russian to recover. Discussing a subject like this is difficult, because it's nearly impossible to choose one thing as the reason it all turned out the way it did. Take for example rail gauge. The Germans needed to convert thousands of miles of it. What effect did this single thing have on their prospects for success? And there are hundreds of other specific things like this that must be considered when assessing why they failed.

Of course what I fail to explain is how Germany could have staged for Barbarossa without taking Poland, which was the trigger was for Britain's involvement. But it's all what-if anyway.

Based on several books I've read, both Raeder and Doenitz wanted war with the US so that the U-boats could have complete freedom of action in the North Atlantic and they heavily pleaded that case with Hitler.