Hitler "Fan" of Great Britain

[Dominico Baggio]

Well my grandfather allways used to tell me Hitler had no intention of fighting Britain and actually admired us but i never quite could grasp this. You imagine the guy to be just one big ball of hatred (hitler not my grandfather lmao) when i learnt history though i found him to be right, and thought i would share this (little known) fact.


Hitler's response to this decision (the statement to fight on despite standing alone) seems to have been conditioned by three factors. Firstly, although it is unlikely that Britain could have resisted an invasion, no definate plans had been prepared for one, so sure was the German High Command that the fall of France would end the western campaign. Secondly, Hitler professed a persistent reluctance to treat a "Germanic" civilisation in the same way that he had treated the Poles.

'He astonished us', wrote General Blumentritt in the last days of the French campaign, by speaking with admiration of the British Empire...He compared the British Empire with the Catholic Church, saying that they were both elements of stability in the world. He said that all he wanted from Britain was that 'she acknowledged Germany's position on the continent'.

Lastly, if Britain still needed to be prodded towards peace, the commander of the Luftwaffe, Hermann Goering, was determined that his forces should be allowed to demonstrate their effectiveness.

AJP Taylor source.

Hitler, though "recognising" the British Empire, proposed to collect Iraq and Egypt for himself. He also played with the idea of restoring the Duke of Windsor and looked forward to Hoare or perhaps Lloyd George as prime minister.



It just brings home even more, the fact that Britain risked everything (and lost most of it) on freedom for Europe, North Africa, the balkans ect, when they could have made a quite respectable peace without occupation. In my mind it makes the sacrifice even more dramatic. Of course if i could go back and be in charge i would do just the same, dont mistake this post for wishing peace had been made.

[Venge]

I never knew these facts, but I always had a feeling that there was some form of respect from the WW2 German war machine towards the Brits.
I am not sure why, I don't think I did anything lame liek pick this up from a movie or anything like that. Might of been from my Grandfather who was with the Canadian forces in WW2 (25 Pounder Artillary). He talked to me about the war when i was young. Unfortunately a lot of what he said to me about his time at war is long forgotten.

[Stryker]

Yes, most Germans including Hitler admired the English, he just felt the Germans could run the British Empire better than the English could ..

Hitler did believe that with the fall of France that Briton would sign a peace treaty leaving him free to put his effort to the Eastern Front and had Chamberlain's government not collapased and been replaced by Winston Churchill this might have happened..

As early as July 1940 "Operation Seelowe" (sealion) the invasion of Briton was planned -- 3500 boats and barges, and 168 transports were allotted ..

HOWEVER .. Goring had promised that the Luftwaffe would clear the skies of British aircraft to which he failed miserably .. and German aircraft were driven from the skies except for night time bombing raids..

without air superiority, and the Army and Navy in disagreementi (Army wanting numberous beachheads and Navy wanting a singel one near Dover) invasion was impossible and "Operation seelowe" was abandoned..

[zak]

I saw a funny thing on Discovery today: english soldiers knocking down signposts so if the germans invaded they would have difficultyes getting arround ;D

If Hitler would have invaded Britain in 1940 i'm not sure if we would all have been speaking german right now
But i doubt the german army was capable of such a large amphibious operation as they had no prior experince.
It took the Allies some two years to prepare for D-Day and they had the prior experince of the Torch and Sicily landings. Air superiority is vital during any beach landing, and in 1944 the Luftwaffe was done for, but in 1940 they had twice the planes the RAF had.

Saw some nice documentaries on Discovery the other night (at 3:30 ) about the Atlantic war, and the truth was the germans never had enough u-boats to pose a real threat (Goring convinced Hitler the Luftwaffe was more important than the Kriegsmarine, and Donitz got his subs too late). The most damage u-boats did was in 1940-1941, but there where too few of them. After 1942 even though they got more subs, the Allies got better at anti-submarine warfare. By 1944 they where dropping like flies and the XXI model made too little impact.
Donitz knew from the beginning that the battle for the Atlantic was lost, but he kept on fighting, like the brave men under his command.
You can immagine how U-boat captains, even Aces like Otto Kretschmer, Wolfgang Lüth, Erich Topp, Günther Prien and all the other brave commanders, saw their subs under more relentless attack by destroyers and the new Flower Corvettes, specially made to hunt them. By the time ASDIC (active sonar, not really sure what the abreviation means ) was equiped on all the sub-hunters, and longer range aircraft were patrolling the skyes, the u-boats days were counted for. Even aces like Otto Kretschmer (who was forced to scuttle) or Günther Prien (who died when his sub was sunk with all hands in 1941) where making little progress. The allies capturing the Enigma machine didn't help either

The sub still had to be improved, and post-war subs where no longer boats that could dive for limmited time but vessels designed to travel underwater for months.
Adding active sonar on submarines, improved sensors, better torpedoes and even rubber coating on the hull designed not to reflect sonar pings made all the difference in the cold war, where the enemy could land a sub in Boston or Sankt Petersburg before you knew what was happening.

WWII subs where imperfect machines, desined to stalk the depths but could only hold their breaths enough to dodge a few destroyers or aircraft. They were sailed by selfless men and brilliant commanders, that proved the men where more important than the machines. Unfotunately it was not enough, and 80% of them never returned.

The sea, she is a cruel mistress...

[Stryker]

ASDIC stands for Allied Submarine Dectection Investigation Committee was the committee that developed the range finding device hence it was given the committee initals (the American version was called SONAR)

Historical glitch in the game - uboats never called it sonar nor was their version S-Gerat used much as the ping was easy to detect) they relied mainly on the Hydrophone

[faamecanic]

What I find interesting is that the leaders of the Nazi Navy (cant remember the main Admiral's name off hand) TOLD Hitler not to mess with the British as early as he did. His Navy commanders knew that Germany's Navy was not ready to take on the Royal Navy.

But just like other advisors told Hitler to not start a war with the Soviets...Hitler did not listen. I saw a show (on History Channel if I remember right) where they ran several simulations on computers, where if Hitler would have listened to his High Commanders....Germany would have won WWII.

think about it...

Englands Navy would have been defeated quite possibly, if Hitler waited for more "Bismark" class Battleships to be finished.

Englands RAF would have had to deal with ALL of the Luftwaffe if Hitler didnt divert resources to fighting on the eastern front.

If the UK was not under attack would they have repalced Chamberlin with Churchill. I admire Churchill for being such a "Dont Mess with me" type person. While he had his personal problems... he most certainly guided England through a VERY pressing time. I am afraid if Chamberlin stayed in the position he would have bent over backwards to apease Germany...and in effect allow Germany to "rule" England by placing only those English politicans that would kiss Hitlers behind.

USA probably would have stayed complacent much longer than it did and by the time we woke up it would have been too late. Quite possibly the Soviets would have fallen and then Hitler would turn his focus on the UK. while at the same time it would have given Japan that much more time to manuver and build up its forces, as well as finish the battles in Manchuria/China.

Germany could have concentrated ALL his forces on the Soviets... and probably defeated them.


In a way we should all be glad that Hitler was a insane megalomanic that would NOT listen to his Admirals and Generals..... the world would be a very different place if he didnt.

[Dominico Baggio]

Too true and good points!

But the RAF did deal with all the luftwaffe, Britain was standing alone at that time, russia was still neutral/with germany.

Also building more Bismarcks wouldnt have helped much as Battleships were obsolete in world war II. Had they built more U-Boats then maybe, but no one in Germany valued U-boats so even with more time to build up it was unlikely they would have concentrated on them.

I agree about chamberlain though, a pity a nice man in a bad time. He had the right idea, to avoid a terrible war, but only now with hindsight can we see how in the end it caused more deaths. I think only churchill seemed to see it coming.

"England had a choice between war and shame. She has chosen shame but will get war..."

Another of his great quotes!

And what personal problems did he have? He was a truly great man, one in a million!

[faamecanic]

I would have to disagree with you battleship comments. In fact wasnt it the Hood that sent the Bismarck packing? I think it hit her rudder and it jammed.

The battleship was the king of the seas for WWII.... in fact the USA didnt get rid of the battleship until after the first Gulf War.

The only enemy the battleship had was the submarine... nothing else dared get into the range of her 16" guns. The shells they threw out were literally the size of Volkswagen Beetles!!!

And about Churchill.... it was well known he had a bad alcohol problem.... but I think I would too living in the times he did. I still say no ONE person motivated people like he did.... a brilliant man.

[Dominico Baggio]

Heh he enjoyed his alchohol, but i wouldnt say he had a bad alchohol problem. This was propaganda from the germans. He enjoyed a party like any of us do.

As for the Hood she was tragically sunk by a one in a thousand shot from the Bismarck in the ammo stores.

The Bismarck was running for France when aircraft from the mighty Ark Royal found and torpedoed her, smashing the rudder.

Aircraft put paid to Battleships as a force in world war 2 and they did very little overall. They were usefull for shelling beaches and inland in the D-day and pacific landings, but beyond that only a few actually fought in a meaningfull way. Next to none fought in the great ship vs ship battles which all had thought were going to come. Aircraft carriers, destroyers and U-boats/subs did the lions share of fighting.

Germany only aimed to use their Battleships to sink enemy cargo ships, which compared to the cost and effectiveness of subs we can see was a bit crazy. Hitler and his obsession with wonder weapons!

[faamecanic]

You are right about WWII being the less meaningful encouter for battleships. But I cant help to think that if we (the US and UK) would have built more aircraft carriers, we could have ended the battle for the seas a lot sooner.

And if the Germans built more U Boats...we would have been in A LOT of trouble.

My father -in-law was a Merchant Marine back in the early to mid 1940's.... and I know from his accounts that their biggest fear was the U-Boat.

He said there was one time when a lookout called out "U BOAT!! LOTS of UBOATS!!" one night just entering the English Channel.

The ships crew all came running up to man gun stations.. and saw literally HUNDREDS of periscopes around them. Turns out the Germans would make hundreds periscopes out of wood and float them out into the channel on a regular basis. My father in law said that sometimes a few U boats would hide among these periscopes.... sometimes they wouldnt.

My father in law had THREE boats shot (torpedoed) out from under him. Even lost his nephew on one.... he was a great and brave man.

Anywho I digress..... good point Dom on the significance of the B-Ship.... you are a good history student ;D

[Stryker]

Dom is pretty much correct here ...

Hood was sunk by one lucky shot from 15 miles ..

Bismarck was only to be a commerce raider, and was hit by a one in a millon torpedo in the rudder from one of 9 planes sent by the Ark Royal causing her to turn in a circle (NOTE: Bismarck had evaded the home fleet and could have safely made it to France HOWEVER Admiral Lutjens was convinced he was still being followed and sent several radio messages in the clear which enabled the fleet to relocate the Bismarck)

Battleships were really no more than floating gun platforms, the days of the great sea battles ended in WWI and aircraft carriers changed the course of the way sea battles would be fought ..

As to Germany winning the war .. it could have, would have, should have happened, AGAIN HOWEVER the German high command made blunder after blunder, Hitler could not maintain one course of action and follow it through to completion, he started the with the navy, then switched to favoring the Luftwaffe, He started rocket production then stopped it, production was started on the A Bomb and stopped, and so on ..

Germany made 3 CRITICAL mistakes ..

They did not produce aircraft carriers when they should have and provide naval forces (uboats) with air cover...

They refused to believe that the enigma code machine could have been cracked (which resulted in over half the uboats being surprised and sunk..

They did not secure a long range base to launch bombers against the US .. (America would have had to pull all European aircraft to protect the homeland)

added to this the fact that Japan caused Germany to have to go to declared war with the US before they wanted to ..

BUT the main thing comes down to VERY BAD high command decisions, failure to listen to commanders who KNEW what actually was going on, and screwing up on the eastern front (they had the majority of the Russian people on their side against Stalin and they pissed them off by terrorizing them)

[Dominico Baggio]

Its crazy isnt it when you look at it. Almost as though there was someone controlling it all and making all these things come together. Strengthens my believe in God lol!

We are lucky he was so pig headed, but on the other hand this pig headedness gave him his early triumphs. So though we can say "if only" about him listening to generals if he had they would never have invaded poland or france. They would never have taken on england.

Unluckily for Hitler, though his good decisions were genius his bad decisions had catastrophic results. Churchill on the other side had genius good decisions and was lucky not to get catastrophic results with his bad decisions.

Do you believe in fate or devine intervention?

[faamecanic]

AGree with both of you.... and thank goodness for the tough spirit that you guys had in the UK back in those days.

I just watched a show on RAF Spitfie pilots... If you had flown ANY plane (to include crop dusters!) you go MAYBE 12 hours of flight training before you were thrown into the "mix" to fight Jerry. Some brave lads those RAF pilots were. I have about 30 flight hours for my Private License and couldnt imagne flying a Spitfire in combat with only 12 hours of "stick time"

[Dominico Baggio]

Its mad isnt it, thats during the worst time when they were short on pilots. They had to train and get them in aircraft as fast as possible, then they had to learn in the air.

I would have loved the chance but i bet it was terrifying!

[Muto]

zak said:

If Hitler would have invaded Britain in 1940 i'm not sure if we would all have been speaking german right now

I doubt it, but you might be speaking Russian...