Some wisenheimer called Hitler a fool or agent for letting the Brits go at Dunkirk.
I replied:
Let me make this clear as
1) a former Marine Corps NCO and 2) a student for 40 years of WWII and of AH: The German Navy had no means to carry out successful amphibious landings on the English coast.
When the US Marines invaded Iwo Jima, Japan, they had a massive navy backing them up.
(Not only was its navy tiny; the Royal Navy was the biggest and best in the world, and the UK is not connected to Europe like France is. It consists of islands out at sea!
Germany would therefore have had to pull off in 1940 a D-Day invasion of England!
With what navy? What amphibious landing craft? The Royal Navy had a massive superiority in aircraft carriers — seven to Germany’s zero — and in battleships 15 to 7!)
Royal Navy
| Battleships | 15 | 2 Nelson, 1 Hood, 2 Renown, 5 Royal Sovereign, 5 Queen Elizabeth | 9 (5 King George V ) |
| Aircraft Carriers | 7 | 1 Ark Royal, 2 Courageous, 1 Furious, 1 Eagle, 1 Hermes, 1 Argus |
HMS Royal Sovereign
German Kriegsmarine
| Battleships | 2 | 2 Scharnhorst (battle cruisers) | 11 (only 2 Bismarckfinish) |
| Old Battleships | 2 | 2 Schlesien (Pre-Dreadnoughts) | “ |
| Pocket Battleships | 3 | 1 Deutschland, 2 Admiral Scheer | “ |
| Aircraft Carriers | 0 |
The superb German battleship Bismarck was sunk early in the war
.
2) Had the Wehrmacht even succeeded in landing, Marine-style, in England, and tried to conquer the Anglo-Saxons, Scots and Welsh, it would have become bogged down in vicious house-to-house fighting for years.
Churchill warned, and I consider it no empty threat:
“…we shall fight on the seas and oceans, we shall fight with growing confidence and growing strength in the air, we shall defend our island, whatever the cost may be. We shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight on the landing grounds, we shall fight in the fields and in the streets, we shall fight in the hills; we shall never surrender, and if, which I do not for a moment believe, this island or a large part of it were subjugated and starving, then our Empire beyond the seas, armed and guarded by the British Fleet, would carry on the struggle, until, in God’s good time, the New World, with all its power and might, steps forth to the rescue and the liberation of the old.”
Emrys Hughes, “Winston Churchill – His Career in War and Peace,” p. 145 https://www.amazon.com/Winston-Churchill-Peace-Emrys-Hughes/dp/B0016LTLG6
3) THEN, when a large part of the German Army was turning London into Stalingrad, the Soviet Union, poised to attack, would have sneak-attacked Germany from the East as per “Operation Icebreaker.”
Suvorov is a Jew, btw, and not at all pro-Hitler
From a review I endorse:
Excellent, detailed account of Stalin’s plan to attack and overrun Germany, then spread out all over Europe and and make all Europeans communists. Stalin didn’t count on the genius of Hitler and his preemptive first strike that pushed the Soviet state to the brink of defeat. Germany lost the war because the Fatherland was woefully prepared to fight a long, drawn-out war, Hitler underestimate the mere numbers of Soviet troops, namely 600 divisions and many more to draw from the gulags, the prisons, the very young Soviets, and as last-ditch choices, the ill or infirm.
I have read that the Soviet Army had more than 1 million women in it and that was certainly a big plus for Stalin. Many of the women were combat soldiers who were top-line snipers, a deadly force to contend with.
Another great factor was “General Winter” and failed logistics, which did not supply the fighting men with what they needed. Splitting your army into three major army groups breaks the laws of Clausewitz and Sun Zu.
The author points out that the first powerful blow that hit the Soviet forces was nearly fatal but as the troops regrouped and stabilized, winter itself led the counter charge and ground the assault to a standstill.
I thoroughly enjoyed this scholarly work and learned many things and plans that went through Stalin’s head. He was certainly a leader that used ruthless measures to win at all costs.
4) AH also was very aware of the strong pro-peace party in England and hoped against hope that his peace gesture would have results. Remember that after the fall of Norway, PM Chamberlain resigned. After the fall of France, Belgium, and Holland and the defeat of the British Expeditionary Force, AH hoped PM Churchill also would fall. There was no folly whatsoever in AH’s considerations! He KNEW that he must do everything possible to try to avoid a two-front war as in World War One!
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barry_Domvile
As David Irving pointed out in his magnificent Hitler’s War, found here hitler-s-war-david-irving
Hitler was a military genius.
…..If
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