Assessing the Allied Victory

Dec. 11, four days after Pearl Harbor

Hitler declares war on the U.S.

Hitler assumed US would focus on Pacific, wrong• Also thought full-scale

mobilization would take five years, wrong

• May have had to do with Japan-USSR

Germans unable to break into Moscow and Leningrad, moved on Caucasus • Halted at Stalingrad• Hitler’s interference in

military planning key, totally unrealistic

• Became obsessed with Stalingrad, resulted in huge losses

January 1943 Soviets on the offensive• 1944 Germans driven out

of the USSR• March to Berlin

Summer 1943, Allied invasion of Sicily

War had never been popular there• Economic conditions

deteriorating Emmanuel III, generals

and Fascist Party arrest Mussolini

Successor Badoglio surrendered to the Allies

German Army tries to defend Rome• Mussolini rescued, but

then captured and hung

Major point of contention amongst Allies

Stalin requesting relief in 1941• Becoming resentful

and mistrustful Invasion of Italy in

1943 slow• Did not divert

German troops

First meeting between these three in Nov. 1943

Earliest date May 1944

Will manage to land 300,000 troops in Normandy June 6, 1944

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hwIABh6WvDs

2.5 million troops 4,700 landing craft and

warships 12,000 to 300 advantage in

Aircraft Intelligence of invasion

location• Bombing of the entire French

coast Construction of floating

harbors Took over a month to gain

control of Normandy Fall had made it to the

Rhine Hitler’s last offensive in

Dec.1944, Battle of the Bulge

February 1945, Soviet troops on German soil, Americans across the Rhine

Met on April 25 Late April, Berlin

under siege April 30, Hitler

committed suicide in his bunker

Germans surrender under Admiral Karl Doenitz on May 8

Germany never won control of the seas, ultimately losing the Battle of the Atlantic, and her navy was heavily outnumbered by the British and American fleets. This meant that by the later stages of the war it was almost impossible to import raw materials or food into Germany. Britain, on the other hand, was able to rely on the support of her Empire.

Germany was not efficiently governed. Though the Third Reich was a dictatorship it was run in a haphazard and chaotic way. Rival Nazi leaders such as Himmler (Head of the Gestapo and SS) and Goering (Commander of the Luftwaffe) were at times more concerned with fighting each other than with fighting the common enemy. These rivalries prevented Germany from efficiently exploiting the industry and the raw materials in the countries that she conquered.

Transport capacity and manpower badly needed for the war effort was diverted to projects such as the Final Solution. 1939-41 saw a huge increased in German investment in rearmament but this was inefficiently managed. Only under Albert Speer (Minister of Armaments and War Production) was there efficient co-ordination of war production. He trebled weapons production.

Hitler never felt confident of the loyalty of the German people and so was reluctant to introduce rationing, to direct labor or to impose strict controls on the economy. The Germans only went over to a ‘total war’ policy in 1943, by which time it was too late. In Britain, which was a democracy, rationing, direction of labor and massive government interference in the economy were accepted by the people and a much greater degree of commitment was secured.

In taking on the USA Hitler made another mistake as it was beyond the range of German bombers and had vast resources of manpower and industry, meaning that in a war of attrition the USA was almost certain to win. By 1943, the combined Axis powers were producing 43,000 aircraft a year whereas the USA alone turned out nearly 86,000 and the Allies in total produced over 151,000. German tank production in 1944 was 17,800 compared to 51,500 built by the USA, Britain and the USSR.

Historians disagree about the efficacy of Allied bombing on Germany. In May 1942 Churchill ordered all out bombing of Germany. Over the next three years, approximately 750,000 German civilians died as a result, 40,000 in Cologne in a single raid.

The Germans had to use vital resources to defend their cities, with 80% of Germany’s fighter planes tied up in this way by 1944. 33% of Germany’s heavy guns and radar equipment were used for anti-aircraft defense.

Although overall German production of coal and steel in 1942-44 did not decline significantly in spite of Allied bombing, American and British raids prevented the expansion of industrial output by Germany.

In attacking Russia Hitler took on an opponent which was probably unbeatable in a long conflict. Russia’s vast size, the severity of the winter weather and the toughness of the Soviet people defeated the Germans. The Red Army, in Churchill’s phrase, ‘tore the guts out of the Germany Army’.

Although the USSR suffered 3 million casualties in 1941, Stalin still had, in December, 1941, 4.2 million men in arms and more tanks and aircraft than Germany.

After Hitler failed to defeat Russia quickly in 1941, Germany was trapped, like in the First World War, in a war on several fronts: in North Africa, the USSR, the Balkans, and, from 1943 in Italy and from 1944 in Western Europe.

This was the decisive campaign; more than anything else the survival of the Soviet Union determined the pattern of the Second World War and of the post-war world. It was the successful resistance of the Soviet Union and the victory of the Russian armies that enabled the Anglo-American coalition to join in defeating Hitler.

In taking on the USSR and USA, Hitler confronted two economic giants. In 1943, Soviet steel and output was more than twice that of Germany. In 1944, the USA produced 40% of world weapon production.

The USSR in 1928 had been behind the USA, Britain, Germany and France in terms of industrial output and only just ahead of Japan; by 1940, as a result of Stalin’s Five Year Plans, Soviet output was bettered only by the USA.

The USA provided a total of between $45 billion and $50 billion of aid in Lend-Lease to its allies.

The Grand Alliance was so superior in material terms to the Axis and its productive bases were so far away from the German and Japanese armed forced that it had the resources and the opportunity to build up an overwhelming military strength which none of the earlier opponents of fascist aggression could have hoped to possess.