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Comment by greedo | Hacker News Reader

The only way the Nazis would have "won" is if they developed the atomic bomb before the US. Even with many of the emigres that helped with the Manhattan project, that might not have been possible. The Soviets were never going to surrender, same with the British, and once the Americans started supplying Britain with arms, they were safe. And then when Hitler declared war on the US, it was game over. The industrial might of the US alone was simply too powerful.

"You have horses! What were you thinking? Dragging our asses half way around the world, interrupting our lives... For what, you ignorant, servile scum!"

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I think the cash/property grab aspect was there from the beginning, and even in the 20´s you see it manifesting itself on a local level with intimidation etc. Klemperer's, I will bear witness, diaries from Dresden in that period are a fascinating read on the day to day impacts. Then as you say, it escalates culminating in Kristallnacht.

But I think they would never have succeeded if it hadn´t been for the 1929 US crash, and the subsequent withdrawal of loans from Germany by the New York banks in response, which pushed Germany over the edge for the second time.

As to how Germany wins WW2, or at least fights into a Cold War like stalemate. Germany continues the Battle of Britain for another month, rather than switching to bombing London, the RAF runs out of operational pilots (rather than newly trained pilots with 8 hours flying experience who have yet to fire their guns, they had plenty of those.). Or just that the men who made up the Polish and Czech squadrons that had the most kills in the Battle of Britain don´t make it across Europe to fight on for the RAF.

Britain falls, the London government retreats to Canada, Hitler can now turn his attention to Russia, without having to fight a two front war. They might still have lost that one, Russia is big, and would presumably have been backed up by the USA and the remains of the British Empire, but the atom program in Germany isn´t that far behind, and they do have the V3 by 1944, so it hopefully? ends up in some kind of Cold War by the 1950´s. (Essentially the storyline of several alternate histories out there. and the SS-GB series.)

It's possible that had the Germans forced a surrender or armistice upon Britain, that the US never gets involved. Domestic sentiment against US involvement was pretty strong and took all of FDR's political skills to overcome for Lend Lease etc.

I'm not sure that Britain could fall though, especially with Lend Lease. The Luftwaffe, while able to initiate the BoB, had surprising losses in the invasion of France, Poland and the Low Countries. Given how the Luftwaffe rarely rotated pilots out of combat squadrons to train new pilots, these losses were difficult to replace, and probably were one of the reasons for the success of the RAF. Also, none of the German fighters really had enough range to escort their bombers over the UK. And the RN was a huge impediment to any invasion of Britain that I doubt could be overcome.

Lend lease was signed in March 1941 - Battle of Britain was Autumn 1940. It's hard to say how much the RN could have done, it's not that far across the channel, and it would have been potentially a very broad front.

Another fun read are Churchill's war diaries (all 6 volumes), where he reveals one of the first things he did was write a begging letter to Roosevelt to send 100,000 rifles to arm the home guard amongst others. Then as now, the UK was woefully ill prepared for war. They did manage to get copies of the "Keep Calm and Carry On" poster out though - it was printed to be displayed after a successful invasion.

Oh there's no doubt that the British Army was too small and had suffered tremendous losses before evacuation at Dunkirk. But the Germans had no transports that could have crossed the Channel, especially when challenged by the Royal Navy. And the Royal Navy got an infusion of 50 destroyers from the US (in exchange for overseas basing rights). These weren't the latest and greatest ships, but they were symbolic of the US commitment to Britain. This preceded Lend Lease.

There were several necessary prerequisites for invading Britain. First was destroying the RAF. Without absolute air supremacy, no invasion could be contemplated.

Second was destruction of the Royal Navy. Despite some success in attacking Scapa Flow with U-boats, the Kriegsmarine was simply incapable of challenging the Home Fleet, much less the combined might of the overseas fleets. The only hope would be from Luftwaffe bombers, primarily JU-87 Stukas. Unfortunately for the Germans, these suffered great losses in the Battle of France, as well as during the initial stages of the Battle of Britain. The Home Fleet was a considerable force in 1940: 4 battleships, 3 battlecruisers, 2 aircraft carriers, 20 cruisers, 25 destroyers, 23 submarines, and numerous smaller craft.

Finally, once ashore, the invasion force would have to overcome the British Army and the Home Guard. While these forces were seriously depleted, the Empire could have brought enormous numbers of troops from India, Egypt, and other regions. That this was never seriously considered might indicate that the British Army wasn't as weak as Churchill would have liked to portray.

I loved reading Churchill's diaries as a kid, but later on realized how much of them were self-aggrandizing and not as accurate as one would hope. Still a fascinating insight into one of the most important leaders of the 20th Century.

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