Biggest mistake of WWII

[Andrew M. Carroll, Esquire]

I remember seeing this post quite some time ago, or at least a
similar post that I think I may even commented on (don't comment too
much, just enjoy reading the posts). Given the length of time, I am
starting another thread. Specifically what were the biggest mistake
or mistakes of WWII?
I was looking at a Youtube video the other day that chronicled
the history of nuclear testing and blasts since 1945 to 1998 (put
'Nuclear Detonation Timeline "1945-1998"' in youtube search) and I
noticed a comment that got me thinking. The comment said something
like we as a human race have more to fear from incompetence and
corruption than technical failure or engineering mistakes.
I think that there are two choke points in WWII that would have
basically changed history in a majorly drastic fashion for all time
following if these mistakes never occured. They are certainly
interrelated but still two distinct mistakes that could have been made
independent of each other. Also, I may add, that these are obviously
not decisions that any bureaucrat, general, diplomat or political
advisor could simply just make on the fly, they involve massive
amounts of consultations, meetings, posturing, perhaps even war gaming
or diplomatic gaming (if there is such a thing) as well as
consultation with allies. But, if these decisions were made, carried
out and defended with all the apparatus of the state and the
tremendous resources, diplomatic or otherwise, available to them I
think that there would have been a fundamentally different history.
I don't like engaging in what ifs, but, I do think the study of
history does lead one to realize that there are choke points in
history that if something went the other way, history itself would
have been different; e.g. what if Meade chased Lee and pounced on him
before he crossed the Potomac - who knows how that would have panned
out? What if Rommel smelled out the ruse and parked his Panzers just
behind the beaches of Normandy on June 5th (I recall a story of a spy
lurking around Normandy and being caught and interviewed by Rommel
himself a few weeks prior to D day - that could have tipped him off)?
Or, what if Castro was indeed recruited by the Pittsburgh Pirates?
Some of the what ifs sometime seem like they wouldn't matter,
such as what if Archduke Ferdinand's driver drove the correct way and
Princip never shot him ... but, the reality is that that war was going
to start anyway. Just forget the grenade that was thrown at the car
several minutes prior to Princip's deed, there was too many entangled
alliances and Germany was practically picking fights all over the
world - Morocco, the South Pacific, etc.
Alas - I digress.
My candidate for the worst mistake of WWII was 1) Stalin did not
act on the (overwhelming) intelligence that Hitler's troops were about
to invade the Soviet Union. Quite frankly, I don't see how this was
missed, it's not like Hitler didn't make his intentions known in Mien
Kampf. But, lets just say for a moment that Stalin, who was literally
murderous in his rage about those who would do him harm, just never
cozied up w/ Hitler, or, at least just cozied up the Germans during
the inter-war years for their own ends but kept Hitler and National
Socialism at arms length. For example, during the inter-war years,
the German army tested tanks, airplanes and tactics in Russia to avoid
the limitations of Versailles treaty, but what if it just stopped
there? I think that such a decision on Stalin's behalf is entirely
possible and in line with his personality, so, the decision could have
actually happened (unlike say Germany not getting into an armageddon
type struggle prior to say 1920 or so). There is no reason to think
that Stalin could not have kept Hitler diplomatically at bay, thus
negating the secret partition of Poland. Hitler probably would have
still invaded Poland. But, at that point, if Stalin was serious, he
would have pulled out all the stops and engaged the apparatus of the
state diplomatically, industrially and militarily (calling up of
reserves, recalling some additional forces from Siberia, etc) by
moving his soldiers up to the frontier or back to geographically
defensible positions, in conformity with the advise of the remaining
career generals that existed in 1939, after Hitler mopped up in
Poland. Perhaps Stalin would have even gone so far as to invade
Poland at the same time - but to oppose Hitler of course (I am sure
Stalin would have knocked off the then existing Polish govt and
installed puppets - even if there would have been a West Poland allied
w/ Hitler and East Poland allied w/ Stalin).
The second choke point that I can think of has to do w/ the
Japanese. Specifically, the Japanese war plan was predicated on two
overarching conclusions - both of which were wrong. One, that America
(the proverbial nation of shopkeepers) would be so overwhelmed by the
blood the Japanese would spill that America would give up and sue for
peace on terms that obviously netted the Japanese a gain. I think
that there were too many variables in that decision and that too many
people, even trusted advisers to the throne and advisers to the
cabinet, that counseled against it (General Kuribayashi and Admiral
Yamamoto) that the Japanese powers to be were going to make that
conclusion no matter what and no matter how stupid it was. However,
the second predicate reason was that Germany would win the war in
Europe. I think this conclusion could have gone the other way,
despite the delusional nature of the Japanese leadership at the time.
Specifically, there were still men in the upper ranks who wargamed
well and adduced logical and coherent conclusions from those war games
- in other words, men who could read a military situation and see
where it was going. I think they still would have been just as
pugnacious w/ Manchuria, Korea and Formosa. I also think that we
would have still embargoed oil and steel and other goods to the
Japanese, but, I also think that instead of picking a fight w/ the US,
they would have simply stole the oil fields in the Dutch East Indies.
They would not have taken Singapore, given that they would have likely
concluded that England would be back to take Singapore ... who knows
how things would have went for India. Maybe they would have gone
their own way in '47, maybe a few years after this (maybe even before
'47, but not likely). But, the point is that the trajectory of
history would have been so completely different.
I don't know how history would have been different in the long
term. Maybe the cold war would not have happened - and that is what I
don't care for with historical what ifs, but, I believe it is fair to
say that if both of these decisions were made, or, even if only one
was made, the very trajectory of history would have been much
different.
Any thoughts on my verbose topic starter?

[MCGARRY]

Post by Andrew M. Carroll, Esquire
I remember seeing this post quite some time ago, or at least a
similar post that I think I may even commented on (don't comment too
much, just enjoy reading the posts). Given the length of time, I am
starting another thread. Specifically what were the biggest mistake
or mistakes of WWII?

The biggest mistake of WWII was the treaty of Versailles which left many
Germans feeling hard done by, and the stiff reparations exacted by
France magnified the effect of the wall street crash on Germany leaving
a situation ripe for someone like Hitler.
Incidentally Germany has just finished paying off the debt.

Rommel finding a spy was nothing special. They were everywhere. The
Germans also intercepted messages to the resistance in the North of
France announcing the invasion. The army around Calais was put on alert
but they'd been on alert for weeks , so it was just another in a long line.

[Don Phillipson]

Post by MCGARRY
The biggest mistake of WWII was the treaty of Versailles which left many
Germans feeling hard done by, and the stiff reparations exacted by France
magnified the effect of the wall street crash on Germany leaving a
situation ripe for someone like Hitler.

Leaving aside the question of whether Versailles "belongs" to WW1 or WW2,
this suggestion seems remarkably unrealistic, viz. recommends no way of
dealing with the unavoidable facts and feelings of 1919 viz.:
1. WW1 was unprecedented and (in 1914) unimaginable. Its duration,
casualties, and brutality were not expected and every wise man in the
world could have shown us in 1914 why such a thing could never happen.
But it did: and everyone knew by 1919 Western civilization had changed
for ever.
2. In 1919 (just as in 1871 and 1815) the war was wound up by a
treaty after negotiations. What was unusual about Versailles was that
the negotiations admitted representatives of governments that did not
exist in 1914.
3. Obviously some participants at Versailles wanted revenge as well
as reparations for wartime suffering. The whole Versailles community
had to deal with these feelings. They could not be ignored, and
ignoring them would not make them go away.

Anyone classifying an event as a "mistake" is obligated to put up a
plausible argument how things might have gone differently. (Otherwise
we enslave ourselves to the idea that historical events are both
(a) inevitable and (b) harmful.) No one wants to accept that either
Leninism or Hitlerism was somehow inevitable: Germans since
(say) 1955 have accepted this in a way no one foresaw in 1945.

[Chris]

Post by MCGARRY
The biggest mistake of WWII was the treaty of Versailles which left many
Germans feeling hard done by, and the stiff reparations exacted by
France magnified the effect of the wall street crash on Germany leaving
a situation ripe for someone like Hitler.

There is a large range of possible people like Hitler... who are not
Hitler. There were plenty of authoritarian dictators in Europe and
around the world in the 1930's- from Latin America to Europe, and only
two really kicked off major wars- Germany and Japan. The other
countries weren't run by saints, certainly, but none of them were
nearly as bad for the world at large as Hitler was. They weren't
kicking off regional and world wars, etc. and if they did murder large
numbers of people, it was only their own citizens, not the citizens of
other countries.

But just to give an idea, from 1925-45 the following countries in
Latin America were under dictatorships for some length of time:
Argentina, Bolivia, Chile, Cuba, the Dominican Republic, Ecuador, El
Salvador, Guatemala, Nicaragua, Paraguay, and Peru.

The following countries in Europe went through some sort of
dictatorship other than Nazi during the same period:
Spain, Italy, the USSR, Greece, Hungary, Poland, Portugal, Bulgaria,
Yugoslavia, Albania, Austria (Dollfuss, not counting Anschluss),
Lithuania, Latvia, and Estonia.

I am probably missing a few- there were many dictators. A few of these
countries started local wars (the Gran Chaco War, for example) but not
the sort of mass cataclysm that World War Two was. They were certainly
opportunistic, gladly grubbing up parts of other countries when
offered (e.g. Poland grabbing a part of Czechoslovakia when it had the
chance). At Versailles, the Entente might have reasonably expected
some sort of outcome like that for Germany as the worst case. It took
a variety of very special circumstances to bring about the horrors of
World War Two. For example, suppose Stresemann lives longer; suppose
Hindenburg and von Papen make different decisions in the run-up to the
Machtergreifung; suppose Hitler is deposed by a more mainstream
authoritarian-conservative government, etc. The Versailles Treaty did
not make the Hitler/Nazi domination of Germany and World War Two
inevitable.

The major reason there were so many dictatorships is that in the
1930's especially it seemed that the Western (small-l) liberal
democratic system was a failure. While the world had generally been
united around the idea that liberal democracy was the best form of
government before World War One (the major debate among the
intellectual elite of the day was about whether it was better to have
a constitutional monarch or not, and how much power he should have),
that consensus was broken by World War One and destroyed by the Great
Depression. This was why Fascism and Communism were so very attractive
to people in the 1930's- it seemed that the best the democrats could
offer was war and misery, while the authoritarians were able to
organize solutions and give the people the brot/hleb they needed.
Looking back from a modern democracy, with Communism and Fascism
defeated and our assumptions about the superiority of liberal
democracy unchallenged it is hard to understand this.

Chris Manteuffel

[Haydn]

Post by Chris
I am probably missing a few- there were many dictators. A few of these
countries started local wars (the Gran Chaco War, for example) but not
the sort of mass cataclysm that World War Two was.

The Chaco War actually turned out to be sort of mass cataclysm for the
countries involved. Other local wars produced a relatively high cost in
human lives and sufferings: "collateral damage" was considerable in colonial
operations like the stamping out of the Libyan anti-Italian insurgency
through the 1920s. (Which, by the way, was under way before Mussolini went
into power). To those at the receiving end of Western warfare, it was just
as bad as WWII. I get your point anyway.

Post by Chris
Looking back from a modern democracy, with Communism and Fascism
defeated and our assumptions about the superiority of liberal
democracy unchallenged it is hard to understand this.

Assumptions severely shaken as of today. Look around. Smell the air. Doesn't
it reek of something familiar - of 1929? The outcome of WWII and Cold War
may have made the appearance of Hitler or Lenin clones harder. But at this
social demolition rate we are getting back there.

Haydn

[Mario]

Post by Haydn

Post by Chris
Looking back from a modern democracy, with Communism and
Fascism defeated and our assumptions about the superiority of
liberal democracy unchallenged it is hard to understand this.

Assumptions severely shaken as of today. Look around. Smell
the air. Doesn't it reek of something familiar - of 1929? The
outcome of WWII and Cold War may have made the appearance of
Hitler or Lenin clones harder. But at this social demolition
rate *we* are getting back there.
Haydn

Do you include USA in that "we"?

USA, UK and France (and some other minor nation) remained
democracies even after the 1929 Crisis.

[Michael Kuettner]

"Chris" schrieb :
<snip>

Post by Chris
The following countries in Europe went through some sort of
Spain, Italy, the USSR, Greece, Hungary, Poland, Portugal, Bulgaria,
Yugoslavia, Albania, Austria (Dollfuss, not counting Anschluss),

I don't get your meaning here. Dollfuss had nothing to do with
the "Anschluss"; when the Nazis tried a putsch here, he put it
down immediately.

Post by Chris
Lithuania, Latvia, and Estonia.

<snip>

Cheers,

Michael Kuettner

[Rich Rostrom]

Post by Chris
Austria (Dollfuss, not counting Anschluss),
I don't get your meaning here. Dollfuss had nothing to do with
the "Anschluss"...

He is counting Austria among the
many European nations which had a
dictatorship between 1920 and 1939.

Austria was of course ruled by a
a dictator after the Anschluss, but
the point of the above snippet is
that Austrian had been a dictatorship
previously under a completely separate
regime.

[GFH]

Post by Andrew M. Carroll, Esquire
I remember seeing this post quite some time ago, or at least a
similar post that I think I may even commented on (don't comment too
much, just enjoy reading the posts). Given the length of time, I am
starting another thread. Specifically what were the biggest mistake
or mistakes of WWII?

Starting it. One may argue that 1) Germany started WWII (or that was
just a local Polish-German war); 2) that Great Britain and France
started WWII by declaring war on Germany; 3) that WWII was already
underway in eastern Asia.

IMHO, the problems created by the various peace treaties ending WWI
could have been resolved without another war.

Or did Great Britain see no other way to compete with an increasingly
more successful Germany? (I put this last suggestion in to raise the
blood perssure of the Anglophiles.)

GFH

[Don Phillipson]

Post by GFH

Specifically what were the biggest mistake or mistakes of WWII?

Starting it. One may argue that 1) Germany started WWII (or that was
just a local Polish-German war); 2) that Great Britain and France
started WWII by declaring war on Germany; 3) that WWII was already
underway in eastern Asia. . . .
Or did Great Britain see no other way to compete with an increasingly
more successful Germany? (I put this last suggestion in to raise the
blood perssure of the Anglophiles.)

GFH writes from experience: he also (just as before) omits to show
us just how Britain induced Hitler to occupy successively the Sudetenland,
Austria, Bohemia, and then invade and destroy Poland.

[Nik Simpson]

Post by Don Phillipson

Post by GFH
Or did Great Britain see no other way to compete with an increasingly
more successful Germany? (I put this last suggestion in to raise the
blood perssure of the Anglophiles.)

GFH writes from experience: he also (just as before) omits to show
us just how Britain induced Hitler to occupy successively the Sudetenland,
Austria, Bohemia, and then invade and destroy Poland.

He also fails show how a "increasingly more succesful Germany" that
built it's success on plundering the treasuries of its neighbors could
be classed as a success. Nor has GFH provided any plausible reason why
Britain should not regard such a predatory and morally bankrupt regime
as anything but a threat to Britain's interests, or the interests of the
entire civilized world for that matter.

[William Black]

Post by GFH
Or did Great Britain see no other way to compete with an increasingly
more successful Germany?

Was Germany that successful?

I was under the impression that without conquests to loot they'd have
gone broke reasonably quickly.

Hitler needed wars...

[Don Phillipson]

Post by William Black

Post by GFH
Or did Great Britain see no other way to compete with an increasingly
more successful Germany?

Was Germany that successful?
I was under the impression that without conquests to loot they'd have gone
broke reasonably quickly.

So too, orthodox economists believe in 1939-40: but it never happened,
i.e. Germany never ran out of economic resources until quite late in 1944.

Plenty of evidence about 1919-39 suggests Germany recovered from
WW1 faster and more thoroughly than any other country, cf. its
chemical and electronic industries, German civil aviation, architecture
(including both the Bauhaus movement and autobahns), German
movies, etc. While we now know the moral costs and the role of
Nazi propaganda, the Third Reich became in six years the most popular
and admired government in Europe, thus a model for some foreigners too.

[Michele]

Post by Don Phillipson

Post by William Black

Post by GFH
Or did Great Britain see no other way to compete with an increasingly
more successful Germany?

Was Germany that successful?
I was under the impression that without conquests to loot they'd have
gone broke reasonably quickly.

So too, orthodox economists believe in 1939-40: but it never happened,
i.e. Germany never ran out of economic resources until quite late in 1944.

Which obviously doesn't disprove what William Black wrote, because in that
time, Germany did have conquests to loot.

[Dave Smith]

Post by GFH

Post by Andrew M. Carroll, Esquire
I remember seeing this post quite some time ago, or at least a
similar post that I think I may even commented on (don't comment too
much, just enjoy reading the posts). Given the length of time, I am
starting another thread. Specifically what were the biggest mistake
or mistakes of WWII?

Starting it. One may argue that 1) Germany started WWII (or that was
just a local Polish-German war); 2) that Great Britain and France
started WWII by declaring war on Germany; 3) that WWII was already
underway in eastern Asia.

I suppose that you can argue about anything, but being able to
successfully defend your argument would be another matter. In regards to
your first proposal, the invasion of Poland was the final straw for
Great Britain. Britain had a treaty obligation to defend Poland, a
country that had been newly formed as a result of WWI. Germany had
already violated the terms of the Treaty of Versailles by militarizing
the Rhineland and annexing Czechoslovakia. It was in the process of
building up its armed forces and it was no secret that.

As for the second point, I think it is unreasonable to suggest that
Britain and France started the war by declaring war on Germany after the
above mentioned treaty violations. They had appeased Germany, but they
were not prepared to stand by and continued to violate treaties and
borders. Churchill, for one, was well aware of Hitler's eye on domination.

In regard to the third point, that WWII was already underway in eastern
Asia, I would suggest was a local between China and Japan at that point.
It blossomed into the Pacific War, which saw Japan pitted against the
Allies after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor and coordinated attacks
across the Pacific. World War II was the conflict in Europe, basically a
resurgence of WWI. The two conflicts have been tied together as WW II
because each of the belligerents was pitted against the western Allies.

Post by GFH
IMHO, the problems created by the various peace treaties ending WWI
could have been resolved without another war.

There are lots of reasons for the failure of the treaties ending WW I.
It might be argued that some of the participants had too much say in the
agreement, and that others had too little. For instance, the US came
into the war late and had an inordinate amount of input in relation to
the time it fought and the military victories achieved. Then, having had
a huge influence on the final agreement, failed to ratify the treaty.
That might be seen as the first of many cracks int he alliance that
convinced the Nazis that they could get away with treaty violations
without risking war.

Post by GFH
Or did Great Britain see no other way to compete with an increasingly
more successful Germany? (I put this last suggestion in to raise the
blood perssure of the Anglophiles.)

I hope that you are not suggesting that the only think that the British
were concerned about was economics of world trade. By the mid 30s
Germany was already actively suffering from the violent politics of the
Nazi movement. They were street thugs who attacked their opposition.
Once in power they oppressing Jews and other minorities.

[John Strong]

One wonders if Great Britain's declaration of war over the invasion of
Poland should not have also included the equally invading Soviet Union,
and if treating Joseph Stalin as an Allie rather than the true enemy he
turned out to be was the biggest mistake of the war.

By the time of the Yalta Conference Winston Churchill could already see
the Free Poles getting screwed and the beginnings of the Iron Curtain
coming down but it was too late to stop.
--

[David H Thornley]

Post by John Strong
One wonders if Great Britain's declaration of war over the invasion of
Poland should not have also included the equally invading Soviet Union,

No, for the very simple reason that the Soviet Union had not
invaded Poland at the time. Nor did Poland officially resist
the Red Army. This didn't stop Britain and France from
planning hostilities against the USSR later on, but those
plans were pre-empted by German action.

Post by John Strong
and if treating Joseph Stalin as an Allie rather than the true enemy he
turned out to be was the biggest mistake of the war.

So, if we're fighting Germany *and* the Soviet Union, how do we liberate
France? Stalin was not a friend, but he was a less immediately
dangerous enemy than Hitler. It was, I believe, correct to
concentrate on bringing down Hitler ASAP, and that required a Soviet
alliance.

Post by John Strong
By the time of the Yalta Conference Winston Churchill could already see
the Free Poles getting screwed and the beginnings of the Iron Curtain
coming down but it was too late to stop.

It was too late to stop in late May 1940. After that, there was really
no hope of defeating Germany with the Western Allies alone, at least
defeating Germany enough to restore Poland. As of that time, the
question for the Poles was which brutal totalitarian regime was going
to rule them, and the demographic information shows they got the
better one. They were much better off under Stalin than Hitler,
at least in 1944 on (I've read that the treatment by the two
dictatorships in 1939-41 was similar, but Stalin's attitude seems
to have changed by 1944.)

[Michele]

Post by John Strong
One wonders if Great Britain's declaration of war over the invasion of
Poland should not have also included the equally invading Soviet Union,

No, one doesn't, if he reads the actual wording of the treaty between
Britain and Poland. Yours is a very common misunderstanding, though.

Both sides were committed to help each other if the other side was involved
in hostilities with a third power, hostilities that the attacked party
deemed necessary to resist with its armed forces.

Poland acknowledged a state of war with Germany and resisted the Germans.

The USSR did not declare war on Poland, Poland did not declare war on the
USSR nor acknowledge the existence of a state of war with the USSR, and the
armed forces of Poland were ordered to withdraw and not to engage the
advancing Soviets. Occasional shootouts took place, under the orders of
local junior commanders, but the Polish government had not deemed it
necessary to resist the Soviets.

So the British commitment did not kick in, in the Soviet case; it did in the
German one.

Consider this: if Britain had declared war on the Soviet Union because of
the Soviet operations in Poland, it would have found itself at war with
another power, while the ally it would have declared war on behalf of, would
not be at war with that other power. A quite weird state of things, wouldn't
it be.

[William Black]

Post by John Strong
One wonders if Great Britain's declaration of war over the invasion of
Poland should not have also included the equally invading Soviet Union,
and if treating Joseph Stalin as an Allie rather than the true enemy he
turned out to be was the biggest mistake of the war.

I see, so you'd like the Allies to lose?

[GFH]

Post by William Black

Post by John Strong
One wonders if Great Britain's declaration of war over the invasion of
Poland should not have also included the equally invading Soviet Union,
and if treating Joseph Stalin as an Allie rather than the true enemy he
turned out to be was the biggest mistake of the war.

I see, so you'd like the Allies to lose?

You are correct. When planning a world war, don't plan to lose.
Sounds
more like Great Britain than Germany. The expansion of the Polish-
German
war into a world war was NOT Hiler's idea. It was a British idea, and
they had
to drag France into it -- which accounts for the delay of two days
(1st to 3rd).
The British did not care that 1) Poland was defeated, and 2) France
was at real
risk.

The outcome of a war is not based on what "you'd like".

GFH

[Hans Christian Hoff]

Post by GFH

Post by William Black

Post by John Strong
One wonders if Great Britain's declaration of war over the invasion of
Poland should not have also included the equally invading Soviet Union,
and if treating Joseph Stalin as an Allie rather than the true enemy he
turned out to be was the biggest mistake of the war.

I see, so you'd like the Allies to lose?

You are correct. When planning a world war, don't plan to lose.
Sounds
more like Great Britain than Germany. The expansion of the Polish-
German
war into a world war was NOT Hiler's idea. It was a British idea, and
they had
to drag France into it -- which accounts for the delay of two days
(1st to 3rd).
The British did not care that 1) Poland was defeated, and 2) France
was at real
risk.
The outcome of a war is not based on what "you'd like".
GFH

So you would expect the British to sit put and let Hitler take Poland as
he wished ? Do you really mean that the responsibility lies with those
that stands up to the aggressor ? The British guarantee to Poland was of
course known to Hitler; he only believed the British would not honour
it. And he did not heed the British ultimatum. So the responsibility for
the outbreak of war rests with Hitler. It was also he who brought "the
phony war" to an end by occupying Denmark, Norway,France, Belgium and
Holland, and thus expanding the conflict.

This is revisionism of the worst order !!

Regards

Hans

[Michele]

Post by GFH

Post by William Black

Post by John Strong
One wonders if Great Britain's declaration of war over the invasion of
Poland should not have also included the equally invading Soviet Union,
and if treating Joseph Stalin as an Allie rather than the true enemy he
turned out to be was the biggest mistake of the war.

I see, so you'd like the Allies to lose?

You are correct. When planning a world war, don't plan to lose.
Sounds
more like Great Britain than Germany. The expansion of the Polish-
German
war into a world war was NOT Hiler's idea. It was a British idea, and
they had
to drag France into it -- which accounts for the delay of two days
(1st to 3rd).
The British did not care that 1) Poland was defeated, and 2) France
was at real
risk.

No, my dear George. The delay was due to the fact that the Allies, unlike
the Germans, did give the opposition a chance to back off from war. Unlike
Germany, that set up a fake casus belly and attacked without a declaration
of war and intended to erase the Polish state from the map, the Allies told
Hitler: just back off and there will not be war. In order to do that, they
gave him some time.

Hitler ignored the opportunity to avoid war with France and Britain.

Which puts paid to your delusion that he didn't want war with France and
Britain. If that were true, he could have countermanded his orders on
September 2. He didn't.

Sure he would have preferred to make war on Poland alone, and you clearly
share Hitler's preferences; but he was ready to be at war with Poland's
allies too, to the point that he ignored the chance for peace, if that was
unavoidable in order to carry out his dreams of aggression and expansion.

[Dave Smith]

Post by John Strong
One wonders if Great Britain's declaration of war over the invasion of
Poland should not have also included the equally invading Soviet Union,
and if treating Joseph Stalin as an Allie rather than the true enemy he
turned out to be was the biggest mistake of the war.

Of course one can wonder about, but I doubt that Britain and France were
prepared to go to war against the Soviet Union. it was Germany who had
been warned of the consequences that it would face if it showed any more
cross border aggression. I cannot muster much sympathy for the Soviet
Union being betrayed and invaded by Germany, but I would suggest that,
as untrustworthy as they were, having them as an ally was far better
than having them as an enemy, or even having them remain neutral. The
eastern front tied up a lot of German men and resources and the Soviets
laid on heck of a beating on the German forces. They pushed them back
further than the western allies did.

Post by John Strong
By the time of the Yalta Conference Winston Churchill could already see
the Free Poles getting screwed and the beginnings of the Iron Curtain
coming down but it was too late to stop.

Indeed. The Poles were stuck in the middle and getting the shaft from
both sides.

[Mart van de Wege]

I think it is unreasonable to suggest that Britain and France started
the war by declaring war on Germany after the above mentioned treaty
violations. They had appeased Germany, but they were not prepared to
stand by and continued to violate treaties and borders. Churchill, for
one, was well aware of Hitler's eye on domination.

I think credit must be given here to Neville Chamberlain. As apparently
a believer in better possibilities, even he had had enough when Hitler
invaded Poland.

And he probably was aware of Hitler's territorial ambitions, he just
wanted to try and satiate them by peaceful means first, if at all
possible; but it was certainly not his only option.

Of course, when it comes right down to it, the old bulldog Churchill was
a better war leader, for all his other faults, and again Chamberlain
showed his wisdom and class by realising that and stepping aside
gracefully.

But for all that, until Spring 1940 Churchill had little say in the
matter.

Mart

[k***@cix.compulink.co.uk]

Post by Mart van de Wege
and again Chamberlain
showed his wisdom and class by realising that and stepping aside
gracefully.

That and the fact that Chamberlain was dying. I forget how long he
lasted after stepping down but I believe he was dead before the war ended.

Ken Young

[Hans Christian Hoff]

Post by k***@cix.compulink.co.uk
That and the fact that Chamberlain was dying. I forget how long he
lasted after stepping down but I believe he was dead before the war ended.
Ken Young

He served as Lord President of the Council in Churchill's cabinet
until a few weeks before his death on November 9th, 1940

Regards

Hans

[Sigvaldi Eggertsson]

Post by k***@cix.compulink.co.uk
That and the fact that Chamberlain was dying. I forget how long he
lasted after stepping down but I believe he was dead before the war ended.

Neville Chamberlain died on 9th November 1940.

[GFH]

Post by k***@cix.compulink.co.uk

Post by Mart van de Wege
and again Chamberlain
showed his wisdom and class by realising that and stepping aside
gracefully.

That and the fact that Chamberlain was dying. I forget how long he
lasted after stepping down but I believe he was dead before the war ended.

I suggest that you look to Lord Halifax, not Chamberlain, as the
leader of the
movement toward war with Germany (and not the USSR).

Post by k***@cix.compulink.co.uk
From Wikipedia: In particular it was Halifax's immediate granting of

a guarantee
to Poland on 31 March 1939--triggered by alarmist intelligence of
German
preparations--that set a firm trigger for war should Germany ignore
this signal
that, in Halifax's words, there would be "no more Munichs".

A short explanation of why Poland was so firm against permitting "free
transit"
through the Polish corridor (between the two parts of Germany). And
why Great
Britain refused to allow the Free City of Danzig (with its 90+% ethnic
German
population) to join Germany.

In 1939 some Polish leaders thought they would lose the first round
with
Germany, but in the end they would come out much better off. By God,
they were right!

GFH

[Mart van de Wege]

Post by GFH

Post by k***@cix.compulink.co.uk

and again Chamberlain showed his wisdom and class by realising
that and stepping aside gracefully.

That and the fact that Chamberlain was dying. I forget how long he
lasted after stepping down but I believe he was dead before the war ended.

I suggest that you look to Lord Halifax, not Chamberlain, as the
leader of the movement toward war with Germany (and not the USSR).

Post by k***@cix.compulink.co.uk
From Wikipedia: In particular it was Halifax's immediate granting of

a guarantee to Poland on 31 March 1939--triggered by alarmist
intelligence of German preparations--that set a firm trigger for war
should Germany ignore this signal that, in Halifax's words, there
would be "no more Munichs".

To be fair, that same secondary source (Wikipedia) confirms that Halifax
was against Churchill's policy to resist at all costs after the loss of
the BEF.

Mart

[Hans Christian Hoff]

Post by Mart van de Wege

Post by GFH

Post by k***@cix.compulink.co.uk
(Mart

and again Chamberlain showed his wisdom and class by realising
that and stepping aside gracefully.

That and the fact that Chamberlain was dying. I forget how long he
lasted after stepping down but I believe he was dead before the war ended.

I suggest that you look to Lord Halifax, not Chamberlain, as the
leader of the movement toward war with Germany (and not the USSR).

Post by k***@cix.compulink.co.uk
From Wikipedia: In particular it was Halifax's immediate granting of

a guarantee to Poland on 31 March 1939--triggered by alarmist
intelligence of German preparations--that set a firm trigger for war
should Germany ignore this signal that, in Halifax's words, there
would be "no more Munichs".

To be fair, that same secondary source (Wikipedia) confirms that Halifax
was against Churchill's policy to resist at all costs after the loss of
the BEF.
Mart

The British decision to reject any German peace ouvertures ranks among
the crucial events of WWII (may be pivotal one). Originally both
Chamberlain and Halifax were inclined to accept an Italian offer of
mediation, but they were eventually both brought around (Chamberlain
first) by Churchill and the other members of the War Cabinet; see Ian
Kershaw: Fateful Choices, Penguin edition, pp.48-49.

[Rhino]

Post by GFH
In 1939 some Polish leaders thought they would lose the first round
with
Germany, but in the end they would come out much better off. By God,
they were right!

I'm not sure how you're definiing "in the end" but it must be something like
"by the 1990s" because in the shorter term, the Poles had a very bad time of
it. First, Hitler invaded them from the west and took a large portion of the
country. Then the Soviets invaded from the east and took the rest. By 1941,
the Germans had taken the rest of Poland from the Soviets and conducted a
very brutal occupation. By 1944, the Soviets were back and did a great deal
of new damage to Poland. Then, the Soviets squeezed out any democratic
elements and occupied Poland until 1989. While they didn't actually murder
as many people as the Germans had, they were very authoritarian and allowed
the Poles few of the liberties that we in the West take for granted.

It was only in 1989 that the Poles finally regained their freedom with the
fall of the Berlin Wall and the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991.

--
Rhino

[GFH]

Post by Rhino

Post by GFH
In 1939 some Polish leaders thought they would lose the first round
with
Germany, but in the end they would come out much better off. By God,
they were right!

I'm not sure how you're definiing "in the end" but it must be something like
"by the 1990s" because in the shorter term, the Poles had a very bad time of
it.

IMHO, the question is what did they meant. WWI had resulted in Poland
as an
independent nation, with access to the Baltic. Getting there was a
difficult and
unpleasant period, but the hardships were worth it in the long run.
Some Polish
leaders thought that another major European war, which Lord Halifax
had all but
promised would be the result of any military action by Germany, would
make
Poland even larger and perhaps even a major nation in Europe.

Certainly the new boundaries of Poland as a result of WWII were a vast
improvement.
Whether being a puppet of the USSR was better than being a minor
country constantly
under pressure from more powerful neighbors is another question. But
the Poles did
get rid of the Germans in their, now larger, country, and the Germans
to the east of
Poland were also gone.

The idea that Great Britain would come to the aid of Poland in the
event of a German
attack was too silly for anyone to believe, unless Great Britain meant
another "great
war". And that is exactly what Lord Halifax had promised.

Remember, on September 1, 1939 the new Polish destroyers were entering
British
ports. Poland had already supplied the English with an Enigma code
machine.
And along the southeast coast of England there was operational radar.
Not up to
late WWII standards, but already developed and deployed. Were they
worred about
a repeat invasion by the Dutch, as in 1689? Not likely.

GFH

[Sigvaldi Eggertsson]

But

Post by GFH
the Poles did
get rid of the Germans in their, now larger, country, and the Germans
to the east of
Poland were also gone.

Poland, post WW2 was smaller than pre WW2 by 77 500 sq kms.

[David H Thornley]

Post by Dave Smith
borders. Churchill, for one, was well aware of Hitler's eye on domination.

Churchill was not part of the government before the war. Until (IIRC)
May 1940, he was the First Lord of the Admiralty, a powerful post but
not one tasked with diplomacy.

At the time the critical decisions were made, Churchill was an MP
with a silver tongue and unusual insight into Hitler's plans, that's
all. After he became prime minister, he continued Chamberlain's
current policy, and did so magnificently.

[Don Phillipson]

. . . I think it is unreasonable to suggest that Britain and France
started the war by declaring war on Germany after the above mentioned
treaty violations.

True indeed, but not quite to the point. Any argument that Britain and
France "started the war" by declaring war 3 Sept. 1939 requires agreeing
that German actions 1-3 Sept. (invading Poland, defeating the Polish army,
and bombing the capital) somehow did not qualify as "war." (This was
indeed
the theme of German propaganda in the earliest days of Sept. 1939, but the
pretence was abandoned as soon as victory was in sight.)

[careysub]

...

Post by Don Phillipson
True indeed, but not quite to the point. Any argument that Britain and
France "started the war" by declaring war 3 Sept. 1939 requires agreeing
that German actions 1-3 Sept. (invading Poland, defeating the Polish army,
and bombing the capital) somehow did not qualify as "war." (This was
indeed the theme of German propaganda in the earliest days of Sept. 1939, but the
pretence was abandoned as soon as victory was in sight.)

This is the standard fare of apologists for aggression everywhere and
at all times. You see, if only no one resisted aggression then there
would be no war - it is the fault of those who raise their hand
against the aggressor who are at fault for "starting the violence".

(Of course aggressors have a tendency to be quite violent even against
unresisting populations, but this is only civil police action and thus
doesn't count according to the apologists.)

[Michele]

Post by Andrew M. Carroll, Esquire
I don't like engaging in what ifs,
Any thoughts on my verbose topic starter?

Yes, that one would never guess that you don't like what ifs.
Have you considered posting your ideas on soc.history.what-if? Better yet,
have you considered reading old conversations in that newsgroup, first? That
is probably the right place for all of this.

[Rhino]

Post by Michele

Post by Andrew M. Carroll, Esquire
I don't like engaging in what ifs,
Any thoughts on my verbose topic starter?

Yes, that one would never guess that you don't like what ifs.
Have you considered posting your ideas on soc.history.what-if? Better yet,
have you considered reading old conversations in that newsgroup, first?
That is probably the right place for all of this.

I agree with Michele.

I like a good "what if" question as well as the next man - maybe more - but
I don't think this is the best place for it. This newsgroup is oriented
toward discussing what actually happened, not what might have happened if
only this or that were different.

There are so many other obvious "chokepoints" that are just as interesting
as yours. To take just one, you might ask "what if Hitler had never been
born?". That would surely have changed the course of World War II immensely
assuming it happened at all.

--
Rhino

[h***@bbs.cpcn.com]

Post by Rhino
There are so many other obvious "chokepoints" that are just as interesting
as yours. To take just one, you might ask "what if Hitler had never been
born?". That would surely have changed the course of World War II immensely
assuming it happened at all.

Agreed. There were many situations in the war that were close calls
and could've gone either way. Just off the top of my head...

--Suppose the Germans reacted properly to the Normandy invasion and
moved quickly to fight it instead of delaying?

--Also, didn't one of the Normandy invading units go off course and
end up facing less resistance as a result?

--Suppose the Allies couldn't break through the German submarine
menance?

--Suppose the Japanese Pearl Harbor force went back again and attacked
the oil tank farms and repair facilities? That would've truly
devasted the base much more so than it was hurt.

--Suppose Stalin cut a surrender deal with Hitler?

(No answer necessary to the above).

[Chris]

On Oct 26, 1:04 am, ***@bbs.cpcn.com wrote:

I've seen few WW2-era WI's that try to improve the military position
of the Axis work: this is one of the things that leads to my opinion
that the Axis military generally performed about as well as they could
have expected.

Post by h***@bbs.cpcn.com
--Suppose the Germans reacted properly to the Normandy invasion and
moved quickly to fight it instead of delaying?

Well, 21st Panzer did launch a disjointed counter-attack on D-Day- it
ran into the concentrate firepower of the British defenders and Allied
navies, and was quickly blunted. The Germans were able to take good
advantage of the defensive geography in the bocage, but were unable to
hold up the Allies for long. In addition, in the Normandy Campaign,
the Germans suffered more dead/wounded- ignoring POW's, just dead and
wounded- than the Allies, despite the fact that the Allies were
largely attacking and the Germans largely defending (factor in POW's
and the Germans were significantly worse off). So I'm not sure that
there was much better the Germans could have done with extra troops
exposed to the awesome firepower of the Western Allied Armies.

As for if the Germans had concentrated their forces in Normandy versus
Pas-De-Calais: if the Germans concentrate in Normandy, the Allies will
simply invade Pas-De-Calais. The handy thing about naval supremacy is
the threat to invade a wide variety of spots: Hitler had to be strong
everywhere, which in turn meant that he was necessarily weak
everywhere.

Post by h***@bbs.cpcn.com
--Also, didn't one of the Normandy invading units go off course and
end up facing less resistance as a result?

Utah Beach is what you're thinking of, but the defenders who were at
the proper spot were hardly going to be capable of stopping the Allied
might. Notice how many times during the war the Western Allies
launched an amphibious assault. Notice how many times beach defenses
managed to repulse them. Dakar is the only one I can think of. Anzio
was penned in for some time, but that was not due to the beach
defenses. Everywhere else the Allies fairly quickly got off the beach
and on with the job, often with quite heavy casualties, but they
accomplished the mission.

Post by h***@bbs.cpcn.com
--Suppose the Allies couldn't break through the German submarine
menance?

Britain was never particularly close to defeat in the Battle of the
Atlantic, not nearly as closely as they were in WWI. From memory, only
on a handful of months did German sinkings exceed the numbers that
they (optimistically) calculated would eventually knock the British
from the war if continued for 6-9 months. But, for example, in summer-
fall 1940 Britain actually has more merchant ships available to it
than it did a year earlier, and then the US Liberty Ship construction
gets going in 1942, CVE's are fairly common by spring '43, etc. If the
KM did seem like they were more effective, than presumably the British
could shift many of the Lancasters and other Bomber Command aircraft
to Bay of Biscay patrols, or make VLR mods to them to close the mid-
Atlantic gap.

Post by h***@bbs.cpcn.com
--Suppose the Japanese Pearl Harbor force went back again and attacked
the oil tank farms and repair facilities? That would've truly
devasted the base much more so than it was hurt.

Oil tank farms: A couple of problems with them: 1) there were a lot of
tanks, each protected by their own berm, so they would have to be
individually attacked. 2) The second wave of attackers, giving the
Americans an hours notice, suffered much higher losses than the first
wave. A third and fourth wave, which would be at the earliest 4-5
hours later, would presumably suffer even more losses to the most
precious Japanese weapon- their highly trained, excellent airmen. 3)
It is not as if the US was short of oil (produced roughly 60% of the
world's production in 1937, with Latin America accounting for another
15%) or tankers (at least at this point- a good number were lost
during the Happy Times in Spring '42). The US could simply have parked
oil tankers in Hawaii and used them as inefficient oil tank farms, if
necessary.

Repair Facilities: During World War Two, the USAAF and BC spent years,
bombing around the clock, from aircraft that carried much larger
bombloads than the Japanese carrier aircraft did, trying to damage
machine tools and factories. For the most part, they found it was a
very difficult job to do properly. In general, the best you could do
was annoy and inconvenience the people working the tools- actually
damaging them beyond repair was quite difficult. Is a single Japanese
airstrike, from aircraft with small bombloads (though dropped in a
more accurate manner) going to do that much better?

Post by h***@bbs.cpcn.com
--Suppose Stalin cut a surrender deal with Hitler?

A "surrender" deal? Why would he? What would Hitler have to offer
Stalin that would make surrendering even something like the Treaty of
Brest-Litovsk worthwhile? Hitler's forces would have to do quite a bit
better than they did historically in order for that to seem appealing
to Stalin, and where are they getting the logistical support necessary
to do so?

Chris Manteuffel

[Rich Rostrom]

Post by Andrew M. Carroll, Esquire
I remember seeing this post quite some time ago, or at least a
similar post that I think I may even commented on (don't comment too
much, just enjoy reading the posts). Given the length of time, I am
starting another thread. Specifically what were the biggest mistake
or mistakes of WWII?

...

Post by Andrew M. Carroll, Esquire
My candidate for the worst mistake of WWII was 1) Stalin did not
act on the (overwhelming) intelligence that Hitler's troops were about
to invade the Soviet Union.

I second that nomination. I don't think
one can suggest "starting the war" -
either for Germany or Japan. In both
cases, the action was a consequence
of the nature of the regime in power,
and that was a choice made long before.

It's also a different class of action
from a mistake made _in_ the war.

Which is the bigger mistake? Sitting
down to play no-limit poker with
Phil Hellmuth, Doyle Brunson, and
Mike Mizrachi? Or going all-in with
three 6s when there are four hearts
on the board? One is foolish to begin
with - but the other is an outright
blunder.

I think a not-distant second was
Mussolini's decision to declare war
in 1940, though that might also be
laid to the nature of the regime or
considered as in that other class
of action.

Stalin's action in 1941 is more
appropriate. It's an operational
choice at a concrete level. It was
made in the face of overwhelming
contrary evidence, and had
immediate disastrous consequences.

Post by Andrew M. Carroll, Esquire
But, lets just say for a moment that Stalin... kept Hitler and National
Socialism at arms length.

The USSR and Germany had only the most
formal relations before 1939 - and were
still at "arm's length" even after the Molotov-
Ribbentrop Treaty. Stalin never trusted
Hitler. His mistake was to be unduly suspicious
of warnings from Britain and other sources,
and to rely too much on his own analysis
that showed it was against Hitler's interests
to attack in 1941.

[w***@hotmail.com]

Post by Andrew M. Carroll, Esquire
I remember seeing this post quite some time ago, or at least a
similar post that I think I may even commented on (don't comment too
much, just enjoy reading the posts). Given the length of time, I am
starting another thread. Specifically what were the biggest mistake
or mistakes of WWII?

I believe I was one of the original posters on this subject back in
February
1999...the orignal post was entitled "Biggest mistake of WWII". I'll
repeat just
the first sentence of my original post, wherein I originally listed 5
big mistakes
made in WWII. For elaboration on each point, google back to that
original
posting and read it (and subsequent numerous postings made by others
during
that time on this subject).

1) The total underestimation on the part of Hitler in regards to Great
Britain's
determination to stand behind the pact made with Poland, should Poland
be
attacked.

2) Hitler's decision to attack Russia and open a second front.

3) Hitler's decision to declare war on the U.S. on 11 December 1941.

4) I had originally mentioned the attack of the Japanese on Pearl
Harbor, and
the fact that this action turned around the Americans from a position
of isolation
and the "America First" attitude to a determination to get militarily
involved
with a Declaration of War against the Japanese Empire.

5) I suppose the fifth mistake would be the failure of the Germans to
develop
the A-bomb before the Americans.

In retrospect, I'll throw one more in. Germany's insistence to engage
in a long,
protracted war without her ability to provide for her own adequate
natural resources
and, instead, dependence on grain and foodstuffs from the Ukraine,
mineral
resources from the Donbass region, and oil from Romania (the Germans
never
even got to the Baku oilfields in the Caucusus).

Obviously, there are many more. My choices back in 1999 were pointed
more to
the broad political and strategic decisions and moves made by Axis
leaders, rather
than individual battles and/or campaigns, except for the note on Pearl
Harbor above.

Tim Watkins

[Carey]

***@hotmail.com wrote:
....

Post by w***@hotmail.com
5) I suppose the fifth mistake would be the failure of the Germans to
develop
the A-bomb before the Americans.
In retrospect, I'll throw one more in. Germany's insistence to engage
in a long,
protracted war without her ability to provide for her own adequate
natural resources
and, instead, dependence on grain and foodstuffs from the Ukraine,
mineral
resources from the Donbass region, and oil from Romania (the Germans
never
even got to the Baku oilfields in the Caucusus).

I'd substitute this last for (5). Failure to develop an atomic bomb was
not a mistake - they could not have done before the end of the war even
if the project had been run in an optimal fashion (although they could
have made much more progress that they did - it would not have helped in
the end).

[David H Thornley]

Post by w***@hotmail.com
1) The total underestimation on the part of Hitler in regards to Great
Britain's

A big one, although Hitler was pretty much committed anyway.

Post by w***@hotmail.com
2) Hitler's decision to attack Russia and open a second front.

If it had worked as Hitler intended, and caused the immediate collapse
of the Soviet government destroying effective organized resistance,
it would have looked a lot better. It was also a way of putting
pressure on Britain: a quick fall of the Soviet Union would remove
Britain's last hope of a Continental ally.

Which, of course, is why it was such a big mistake.

Post by w***@hotmail.com
3) Hitler's decision to declare war on the U.S. on 11 December 1941.

I'm not sure about that one. The USN was already at war in the Atlantic
and not doing real well. Roosevelt wanted war with Germany, and as
long as there were hostilities he was going to get it, more at the
time of his choosing.

Post by w***@hotmail.com
4) I had originally mentioned the attack of the Japanese on Pearl
Harbor, and

Very similar in some respects to Hitler attacking Poland. While
refraining would have saved Germany and Japan from devastation and
utter defeat, it would have wound up being a serious embarrassment
to the governments involved.

The Japanese were more remarkable in that the Japanese admirals
really did have a good idea as to what was going to happen.
Yamamoto, who was probably the admiral who knew the US best,
really insisted on the Pearl Harbor attack.

Post by w***@hotmail.com
5) I suppose the fifth mistake would be the failure of the Germans to
develop
the A-bomb before the Americans.

They never really had a chance. I'd suggest that a bigger mistake
was the heavy German investment in high-tech weapons, although
some of those paid off to some extent and others could have.

Post by w***@hotmail.com
In retrospect, I'll throw one more in. Germany's insistence to engage
in a long,
protracted war without her ability to provide for her own adequate
natural resources

It's hard to see an alternative. The original German plan was to
defeat Poland and see what they could do from there, and that worked.
Then they defeated France, and at that time were facing an opponent
they couldn't defeat.

At that point, the only possibilities were to dig in for a long war,
or see what Britain would be interested in for peace terms.

Post by w***@hotmail.com
Obviously, there are many more. My choices back in 1999 were pointed
more to
the broad political and strategic decisions and moves made by Axis
leaders, rather
than individual battles and/or campaigns, except for the note on Pearl
Harbor above.

One could add the Japanese invasion of China, which got them into
a position where they thought they could only extricate themselves by
attacking in the Pacific. Their problems were not limited to the
tightening Western embargoes, since they would not have been able to
pay for the necessary imports anyway sometime in 1942.

[h***@bbs.cpcn.com]

Post by Andrew M. Carroll, Esquire
My candidate for the worst mistake of WWII was 1) Stalin did not
act on the (overwhelming) intelligence that Hitler's troops were about
to invade the Soviet Union.

It wouldn't have mattered. Had Stalin had better defenses in place in
response to the German massing against the border, it would've merely
slowed the Germans down. The Germans still would've crashed through.
Stalin had ruined the army through his purges and bad orders, such as
premature offensives.

Post by Andrew M. Carroll, Esquire
Japanese...One, that America
(the proverbial nation of shopkeepers) would be so overwhelmed by the
blood the Japanese would spill that America would give up and sue for
peace on terms that obviously netted the Japanese a gain.

This was a very reasonable assumption given the attitudes in the US at
the time. The U.S. _was_ soft and unprepared, and many US leaders
felt that way.

Also, Japan did not anticipate the US developing and using an atomic
bomb, since it did not exist except as a vague theory in 1941.

Note one reason some US leaders were pushing to deploy the atomic bomb
was that they realized US resolve for the fight was weakening. Would
US citizens had the stomach for a bloody invasion of Japan in November
1945, or had been willing to accept some sort of conditional
surrender? I think Americans were getting tired of the war, both the
privations at home and the loss of life of their boys. Leaders knew a
conditional surrender would be a repeat of the mistakes of ending WW
I.

Post by Andrew M. Carroll, Esquire
the second predicate reason was that Germany would win the war in
Europe.

This also was a very reasonable assumption. For a while it certainly
did look that Germany would indeed win the war for many reasons. It
occupied considerable land and had considerable resources from that
land to supply its war machine.

Don't forget Britain and the Soviet Union were considerably weak from
their fighting with Germany by the time the US came in. They didn't
have much reserve left to keep fighting.

The Allies won the war because of US industrial might. But it took
several years to get industry organized and going and it was a
difficult task. (Industry and unions were more resistant than they
later liked to admit.) It was very hard winning the battle of the
Atlantic so as to be able to ship materiel over to Europe.


Hindsight is 20/20, foresight is not.

[Rich Rostrom]

Post by h***@bbs.cpcn.com

Post by Andrew M. Carroll, Esquire
My candidate for the worst mistake of WWII was 1) Stalin did not
act on the (overwhelming) intelligence that Hitler's troops were about
to invade the Soviet Union.

It wouldn't have mattered. Had Stalin had better defenses in place in
response to the German massing against the border, it would've merely
slowed the Germans down. The Germans still would've crashed through.
Stalin had ruined the army through his purges and bad orders, such as
premature offensives.

It is very probable that BARBAROSSA would have
been a success even had Stalin been on the alert
and directed the Soviet army appropriately.

But it is very improbable that BARBAROSSA would
have been a success of the same magnitude as OTL.
The misdeployment commanded by Stalin allowed
the Axis to throw Soviet forces into instant rout, and
to inflict not just lopsided casualties but effectively
one-sided casualties for a month or more. The disasters
suffered in June-July 1941 put the Soviets in such
desperate straits that wasteful short-term strategies
were forced on them; the costs of these actions were
compounded later, and indeed for the rest of the war.

The probable outcome of Axis attack on a _ready_ Soviet
military would be defeat of the Soviet forces in the frontier
zones with about 3M casualties to Axis losses of 500K,
and Axis advances to Riga, Smolensk, and Kiev. In OTL,
BARBAROSSA resulted in Soviet losses of around 6M,
Axis losses of about 300K, and Axis advances to the
outskirts of Leningrad, Moscow, and Rostov. That's a
big difference.

[Bay Man]

Post by Rich Rostrom
It is very probable that BARBAROSSA would have
been a success even had Stalin been on the alert
and directed the Soviet army appropriately.

Barbarossa was a failure.

[Bay Man]

Post by h***@bbs.cpcn.com
Don't forget Britain and the Soviet Union
were considerably weak from
their fighting with Germany by the time the
US came in. They didn't have much reserve
left to keep fighting.

Not so.

Wages of Destruction by Adam Tooze:

page 588:
"the USSR, in 1942 managed to outproduce Germany in every category of
weapons. The margin for small arms and artillery was 3:1. For tanks it was a
staggering 4:1, a difference compounded by the vast ly superior quality if
the T34 tank" Even in combat aircraft it was 2:1"

"To avoid misunderstandings, this was emphatically a story of Soviet success
not German failure."

"The exceptional performer was the USSR in 1942, which produced twice as
many infantry weapons, as many artillery pieces and almost as many combat
aircraft and tanks as the USA."

Page 589:
"The Soviet miracle was not due to Western assistance. Lend-lease did not
being to affect the balance on the Eastern Front until 1943"

"1942 was the pivotal year in the war"

Post by h***@bbs.cpcn.com
The Allies won the war because of US industrial might.

See above.

The US shortened the war for sure, but were never decisive in the outcome.

Post by h***@bbs.cpcn.com
Hindsight is 20/20, foresight is not.

Only if you know the facts.

[w***@hotmail.com]

On 24 Oct 2010 David H Thornley <da...thornley.net>

Post by David H Thornley

Post by w***@hotmail.com
1) The total underestimation on the part of Hitler
in regards to Great Britain's ...

A big one, although Hitler was pretty much
committed anyway. ...

As far as committments go, Hitler's committments
go back as far as 1924, when he wrote in Mein
Kampf of his desire to attack Russia and gain
"Lebensraum" . The point is, Hitler and his regard
for the "little worms" that he encountered at
Munich in 1938 left him with the impression that
both Britain and France would not interfere with
his intention to attack Poland the following year.
Thus, it would appear that Hitler's committment
left him short-sighted as to the stance both
Britain and France would take, should Poland be
attacked. Which goes to Point 1 that I made.

Post by David H Thornley

Post by w***@hotmail.com
2) Hitler's decision to attack Russia and open
a second front.

If it had worked as Hitler intended, and caused
the immediate collapse of the Soviet government
destroying effective organized resistance, ...

You will recall that the first plan finalized by the
German General Staff (one source called this Plan
Otto) was for Army Groups North and Center to
drive north and east and capture both Leningrad
and Moscow in a Blitzkrieg swift assault, before the
dreaded Russian General Winter reared his ugly
head. Hitler then recalled that Napoleon had
actually reached Moscow, but had bypassed
thousands of Russian troops in the steppes as he,
Napoleon, advanced on Moscow. Hitler had always
thought that had been a huge mistake Napoleon
had made.

Hitler than scrapped Otto and instead told his
panzer commanders that Moscow would not be
the primary military objective; instead, he wanted
to utilize a series of encircling pincer movements
to capture huge amounts of Soviet troops west and
north before Moscow.

The point is, Hitler's Plan Barbarossa was not to
immediately collapse the Soviet government, but to
instead capture the bulk of Soviet forces in the field.

Post by David H Thornley
... it would have looked a lot better. ...

Nothing looked better to the Russians on 5 December
1941 the the sight of German panzers and motorized
vehicles stuck in the freezing conditions just west and
north of Moscow, as the oil in vehicle sumps was frozen
solid and the actions of guns and rifles were inoperative.

Post by David H Thornley

Post by w***@hotmail.com
3) Hitler's decision to declare war on the U.S. on
11 December 1941.

I'm not sure about that one. ...

You will recall that FDR was in a quandry about the
U-boat attacks in the Atlantic and, true enough, knew
that eventually the U.S. was going to be involved in the
European conflict, as well as war with Japan. But rather
than the U.S. declaring war on Germany, Hitler took FDR
off the hook, so to speak, by declaring war on the U.S. on
December 11th.

And, of course, this brought the fourth major power into
the war against Hitler and the Axis. Now marshalled
against the Axis powers is the huge economic and
material war production resources of the U.S.A..

Post by David H Thornley

Post by w***@hotmail.com
5) I suppose the fifth mistake would be the failure of
the Germans to develop the A-bomb before the Americans.

...I'd suggest that a bigger mistake was the heavy German
investment in high-tech weapons, ...

I'd suggest that an even bigger mistake was to not continue
with the A-bomb program (recall that German physicists had
discovered uranium fission as early as 1938), develop the bomb,
and then connect an A-bomb warhead with a long-range German
bomber (the Luftwaffe had plans for a bomber that could fly to
the U.S. and back).

Post by David H Thornley
... The original German plan was to defeat Poland and see
what they could do from there, and that worked. ...

No it didn't. The attack on Poland, as previously discussed,
brought Britain and France into the war.

Post by David H Thornley
Then they defeated France, and at that time were facing
an opponent they couldn't defeat.

But Hitler didn't believe that, at that time. He was geared to
a concept of rapid Blitzkrieg; no sense in supplying the
eastern front with low-temperature oils and lubricants and
warm weather clothing for troops, if you are going to defeat
the Soviets before winter of 1941.

Post by David H Thornley
At that point, the only possibilities were to dig in for a
long war, or see what Britain would be interested in for
peace terms.

See notes above about Germany's Blitzkrieg mentality,
and the shortage of natural resources, especially oil if
the Germans were to lose the oil fields in Romania and
Hungary, could not get to the Baku oilfields in the Trans-
Caucusus, and if the Allied bombing offensive took out
the synthetic oil production facilities.

Tim Watkins

[Chris]

Post by w***@hotmail.com
I'd suggest that an even bigger mistake was to not continue
with the A-bomb program (recall that German physicists had
discovered uranium fission as early as 1938), develop the bomb,
and then connect an A-bomb warhead with a long-range German
bomber (the Luftwaffe had plans for a bomber that could fly to
the U.S. and back).

In order for Germany to achieve this during the war, they would need
the industrial resources of the United States of America. Indeed, they
would need greater resources than that of the US- the B-36 didn't
enter service until 1949, so they would have needed far more resources
than the US historically did. That leads to the question of where do
all these resources come from? Indeed, if Germany had access to that
level of industrial power, why are they fighting a war at all? What
could Hitler possibly gain from conquest if they had those resources
to begin with?

And that's leaving aside the minor questions like 'why are they
focusing all of this effort on beating the US when the USSR is right
next door and a monstrously dangerous land power?'

Chris Manteuffel

[w***@hotmail.com]

Post by Chris
In order for Germany to achieve this during the war, they
would need the industrial resources of the United States
of America. ...

Post by w***@hotmail.com
I'd suggest that an even bigger mistake was to not
continue with the A-bomb program ...

Why would it have been necessary for the Germans to
need the industrial resources of the U.S. to develop the
A-bomb, if they had been committed as early as 1938 to
do nuclear research on their own? Germany had the
physicists and scientists (as aforementioned, the Germans
had discovered uranium fission in 1938), the technical
resources, billions of Reichmarks to devote to the project,
POW/slave labor, and the facilities to develop a nuclear
program. The one element that they lacked, of course,
was that Hitler never understood the concept of nuclear
weapons. Thus, by 1942, Germany had dropped the
idea of developing a nuclear weapon and, instead, spent
more than 2 billion marks on the A-4 / V-2 rocket, as an
example of expenditures (this does not include the cost
of mobile launch vehicles, troop training, construction of
bunker sites, liquid oxygen plants, etc.).

Post by Chris
Indeed, they would need greater resources than that
of the US- the B-36 didn't enter service until 1949, ...

If the Germans had developed an A-bomb between 1938
and 1945, Hitler might have used the bomb on either
the Russians in the east, or other Allies in the west;
point is, he would not have needed a long-range bomber
such as the B-36. Aside and apart from the use of a
long-range bomber, presumably he could have used a
nuclear warhead on the V-2.

Post by Chris
... where do all these resources come from?

German physicists and scientists, the Reichsbank,
slave labor, natural resources traded with the USSR
prior to June 1941, and cooperation and understanding
from Hitler himself.

Post by Chris
Indeed, if Germany had access to that level of
industrial power, why are they fighting a war at all? ...

Because of a burning, seething anger that Hitler had
after Germany's defeat in WW1, the treatment Germany
received after the Treaty of Versailles in 1919, quest
for "Lebensraum", "international Jewry", and Bolshevism
to mention just a few.

Post by Chris
What could Hitler possibly gain from conquest if they
had those resources to begin with?

If you are referring to resources to develop a nuclear
weapon, consider the fact that the Germans built
approximately 6,000 V-2's, as well as V-1's and other
rockets at great cost.

As far as conquest is concerned (and revenge therefrom),
I recall the film footage of Hitler stomping his foot on
the ground in glee in the forest at Compiegne, France,
as he was about to enter (or had just left) the railway
carriage that Marshall Foch had used in 1918 when the
WW1 armistice was signed. The conquest of France
in 1940 and the subsequent signing of France's surrender
in that same railway car must have been deeply
satisfying to Hitler.

Post by Chris
And that's leaving aside the minor question like 'why
are they focusing all of this effort on beating the US
when the USSR is right next door and a monstrously
dangerous land power?

When you ignore the advice of your generals and initiate
a two-front war, you suddenly find yourself in a
monstrously dangerous position of being caught between
huge land powers, such as the US and the USSR, not
to mention about half of all the world's countries.

Tim Watkins

[Thufir Hawat]

As far as conquest is concerned (and revenge therefrom), I recall the
film footage of Hitler stomping his foot on the ground in glee in the
forest at Compiegne, France, as he was about to enter (or had just left)
the railway carriage that Marshall Foch had used in 1918 when the WW1
armistice was signed.

You may be recalling clever British propoganda, where they looped footage
of Hitler to make him appear (more) loony.


-Thufir

[Alan Nordin]

Post by Thufir Hawat
You may be recalling clever British propoganda, where they looped footage
of Hitler to make him appear (more) loony.
-Thufir

No, it's a pretty famous clip, I've seen it and stills from it many
times. Oh, and BTW Hitler didn't need help from anyone in that
department.

Here's a link to the clip in question ...

[j***@cix.compulink.co.uk]

In article

Germany had the physicists and scientists (as aforementioned,
the Germans had discovered uranium fission in 1938), the
technical resources, billions of Reichmarks to devote to the
project, POW/slave labor, and the facilities to develop a nuclear
program.

They had some physicists, good ones, but not as many as the Manhattan
Project. The discovery of fission lead to the realisation that a nuclear
weapons was conceivably possible: quite a few physicists realised that
almost immediately.

They didn't have the technical facilities on hand: they would have had
to build them, just as the Manhattan Project had to.

As regards budget, the overall budgets for the V-2 and Manhattan
projects were around the same size. A atomic bomb project would probably
have done more good for Germany, /if/ they had been able to carry it out.
And the "if" is significant: see below.

The POW/slave labour is not very much use for this. There isn't an issue
of mass-producing thousands of medium-to-low quality machines. It was
definitely more use for the V-2 project than it would have been for a
bomb project.

The one element that they lacked, of course, was that Hitler never
understood the concept of nuclear weapons.

Because the physicists didn't manage to sell the idea to the Army of the
Luftwaffe. This seems to have been because they were really tentative
about it, and could not break out of academic and physics jargon. They
had some sessions about it, but were only asking for small sums for
research, rather than outlining a huge industrial project for a
practical weapon.

If the Germans had developed an A-bomb between 1938 and 1945, Hitler
might have used the bomb on either the Russians in the east, or other
Allies in the west; point is, he would not have needed a long-range
bomber such as the B-36.

Perfectly true, and the He 177 could even have lifted it.

Aside and apart from the use of a long-range bomber, presumably
he could have used a nuclear warhead on the V-2.

Apart from Germany not being able to afford both the V-2 and an A-bomb
project, the V-2 did not have anything like the payload for a
first-generation atomic bomb. Its warhead was 2,200lb, about a quarter
of Little Boy's weight and a smaller fraction of Fat Man's.

Finally, there comes the problem of "could they have done it?" We don't
know, but at war's end, they didn't really know how. They had abandoned
uranium enrichment as requiring too much industrial plant and were
focused on the plutonium route.

The book _Hitler's Uranium Club_ is quite important in this field: at the
end of the war, a bunch or Germany's leading physicists, including most
of the big names, such as Heisenberg and Hahn (the discoverer of
fission) were collected up and held in a country house in England, which
was thoroughly bugged. The Manhattan Project had reckoned that more
truth would come out of eavesdropping than questioning, knowing the
scientists are generally quite poor at keeping quiet when they have
little to do but talk to their peers. The book is a collection of the
bugging transcripts.

And it seems fairly clear that they'd never actually worked out what a
critical mass was, and hadn't clearly understood the difference between
a fast-neutron bomb and a slow-neutron reactor. You may well say that
this would have been discovered during a project; it was a point that
was clearly apprehended by the British and US research groups before the
Manhattan Project was actually started. The Germans had done several
years of heavy water and uranium experiments, continuing to the end of
the war, without figuring that point out.

There's also no mention of a conspiracy to keep Hitler from having a
bomb, which some of them made claims about subsequently. When they had
the news of the atomic bombings of Japan, they were shocked: they
thought if they could not do it, nobody could. They were deeply wrong
there.

[Carey]

Post by j***@cix.compulink.co.uk
In article

Germany had the physicists and scientists (as aforementioned,
the Germans had discovered uranium fission in 1938), the
technical resources, billions of Reichmarks to devote to the
project, POW/slave labor, and the facilities to develop a nuclear
program.

They had some physicists, good ones, but not as many as the Manhattan
Project. The discovery of fission lead to the realisation that a nuclear
weapons was conceivably possible: quite a few physicists realised that
almost immediately.
They didn't have the technical facilities on hand: they would have had
to build them, just as the Manhattan Project had to.
As regards budget, the overall budgets for the V-2 and Manhattan
projects were around the same size. A atomic bomb project would probably
have done more good for Germany, /if/ they had been able to carry it out.
And the "if" is significant: see below.

....

Post by j***@cix.compulink.co.uk
Finally, there comes the problem of "could they have done it?" We don't
know, but at war's end, they didn't really know how. They had abandoned
uranium enrichment as requiring too much industrial plant and were
focused on the plutonium route.

Au contraire, we DO "really know", even though they did not kick off a
German equivalent of the Manhattan Project.

It is the Manhattan Project that tells us. It is a remarkable, unique
historical experiment - we have nation with effectively unlimited
resources for the project of very kind, which poured in those resources
as fast as they could be absorbed, that pursued every line of
development that seemed promising simultaneously, and still failed to
produce a bomb in a time frame that would have been useful to Germany.

The first bomb was produced in July 1945, but Germany capitulated on
May 7, 1945.

Let us suppose Germany got the bomb faster than the U.S., who much
earlier would it have had to be to actually improve Germany's position
in the war?

I would argue that any time in 1945 was certainly too late. By that time
the bombing of Germany was having a big effect on German industry, and
was capable of shutting down any industrial operation that it targeted.
A first test on 1 January 1945, of a German atomic bomb would have had
ALSOS identifying the production plants in short order, after which they
would have ceased to function.

A German plutonium bomb would have required a German Hanford - which
would have been easy to find and shut down.

To hope to change the course of the war Germany would have had to beat
the Manhattan Project by a full year. Once the allies took over France,
an A-bomb could not dislodge the Allies from Western Europe -- and
attempts to threaten the Allies with one would have brought the counter
threat of urban gas bombing in retaliation. Then their production
facilities would have to survive being on the top of the Allied bomb
list for the remainder of the war.

[j***@cix.compulink.co.uk]

Post by Carey
To hope to change the course of the war Germany would have had to
beat the Manhattan Project by a full year.

Quite so. Doing that isn't really within the realms of credibility. It
needs the German bomb project to have got started immediately on the
discovery of fission, receive vast resources, go down no blind alleys
more than very briefly, and be extremely lucky.

I was thinking more about "could those people have done it, under ideal
circumstances?", which isn't the same thing as getting the chance to do
it.

[careysub]

Post by j***@cix.compulink.co.uk

Post by Carey
To hope to change the course of the war Germany would have had to
beat the Manhattan Project by a full year.

Quite so. Doing that isn't really within the realms of credibility. It
needs the German bomb project to have got started immediately on the
discovery of fission, receive vast resources, go down no blind alleys
more than very briefly, and be extremely lucky.
I was thinking more about "could those people have done it, under ideal
circumstances?", which isn't the same thing as getting the chance to do
it.

There are a number of very plausible alternate historical paths that
could have led Germany to having the atomic bomb and using it to major
effect in WWII. That these paths existed is one reason why you will
not find me ever saying that since Germany could not get the bomb,
that the allies should have realized this.

What does fail is that at the point in real history where Germany
might have made the same sort of decision as Roosevelt in May 1942, it
was already too late for them to have a successful program. And I
think Heisenberg should be credited for making the call that this was
so, and essentially advising against the effort (various exotic
theories to explain his actions should be excluded by Occam's Razor).

The best case based on the actual discovery of fission (not a
hypothetical earlier one) would have had a well-supported aggressive
German scientific team with industry ties team going "all in" on doing
large scale uranium-heavy water critical experiments in 1939. We would
be looking for a scientific-industrial partnership focused on
immediate industrial application like the one that actually existed in
France (and had to flee to Britain in May 1940). This project would
have had to gain impetus with each positive result, and lead quite
earlier to letting contracts to IG Farben for industrial scale heavy
water production (and have these contracts actually get executed
quickly). Heavy water plant contracts and engineering designs were
actually prepared but IG Farben chose not to pursue the matter. (This
is essentially a heavy water version of the electrochemical industry
mobilization engineered by Szilard in the US for graphite - which in
his case was very successful.)

Such a program might have had a heavy water reactor operating in late
1941, a year ahead of Fermi. The time advantage would basically derive
from this earlier start. The Manhattan Project was organized so
masterfully that it is hard to find any areas of realistic speedup
potential. Indeed, no other nuclear weapons program has ever matched
it for speed, despite the advantages of already knowing most of the
answers and having the technology already in existence. If the Germans
performance had deviated from the MP, it would be most likely for the
worse, frittering away part or all of the time gain.

[Chris]

Post by careysub
The best case based on the actual discovery of fission (not a
hypothetical earlier one) would have had a well-supported aggressive
German scientific team with industry ties team going "all in" on doing
large scale uranium-heavy water critical experiments in 1939.

As foolish as it seems to disagree with you on issues of nuclear
weapon design (your excellent High Energy Weapon FAQ forms a rather
large part of my understanding of nuclear weapon issues) I'm not sure
that this is at all plausible. I don't think it possible that anyone
could have gone 'all-in' on a uranium reactor in 1939 for a bomb,
certainly not a country other than the US. If you were working on a
reactor in 1939-40, the primary goal seems to have been power, not a
bomb. And the reason for that was the uncertainty over whether element
94 (Seaborg did not discover and name it until 1940) was fissile or
not.

When Frisch & Peierls wrote the MAUD report, they pretty much ignored
the possibilities of a reactor creating 94 to use as a bomb. That was
because at the time they wrote it, all of the isolated Plutonium in
the entire world was in the United States. While the exact same
situation held for U-235, due to their work with natural uranium they
were confident that the 235 isotope of Uranium would be fissile. While
the math suggested that Pu239 should be fissile, there was simply no
guarantee, and so F+P felt that it would be incredibly foolish to
spend all the resources necessary to isolate 94 to test it to see if
it worked. As an example, even as great a physicist as Fermi doubted
that 94 would make a good bomb in Autumn 1940 [1], because he hadn't
seen the results from Seaborg showing that it would make a good bomb.
Some other theorists thought it would, but it was not at all a clear-
cut thing.

So the reason that the US pursued plutonium production with such
intensity was largely because they had been the first to isolate it.
That was because the US had something of a monopoly in atom smashers
at this point- largely due Lawrence and his team at Berkeley. So
without changing that and giving the Germans a lot more experience
with high energy physics I am doubtful that they would commit to a
plutonium production path to the Bomb, certainly not in 1939- at that
point Seaborg hasn't even isolated 94 yet; the idea that the Germans
would go all in on element that had not yet even been isolated seems
frankly impossible. You have to have them farther along with atom
smashers, and maybe isolating 94 themselves first, and then they could
commit to a major program based on reactors and plutonium. So, if they
could just get ahead of Lawrence, Seaborg, and Co. they might have a
chance.

But once again they need to do expensive, difficult things
significantly better than the US in order to have a chance.

[1]: According to my notes from Gowing, _Britain and Atomic Energy_

Chris Manteuffel

[Carey]

Post by Chris

Post by careysub
The best case based on the actual discovery of fission (not a
hypothetical earlier one) would have had a well-supported aggressive
German scientific team with industry ties team going "all in" on doing
large scale uranium-heavy water critical experiments in 1939.

As foolish as it seems to disagree with you on issues of nuclear
weapon design (your excellent High Energy Weapon FAQ forms a rather
large part of my understanding of nuclear weapon issues) I'm not sure
that this is at all plausible. I don't think it possible that anyone
could have gone 'all-in' on a uranium reactor in 1939 for a bomb,
certainly not a country other than the US. If you were working on a
reactor in 1939-40, the primary goal seems to have been power, not a
bomb. And the reason for that was the uncertainty over whether element
94 (Seaborg did not discover and name it until 1940) was fissile or
not.

AH, but notice I did not say "all in" on a bomb - I said "all in" on
"large scale uranium-heavy water critical experiments" using the actual
contemporary French research program as a model.

The French were doing if for industrial power production (i.e. money)
not a weapon. The Germans might (or might not) have had a weapon as a
secondary possibility but the industrial application alone was
sufficient motivation at this time to the necessary
scientific/industrial R&D.

I am not really going out a limb, I am simply suggesting that the
Germans do what the French actually did, but with even greater
industrial participation.

The Germans could even have gotten heavy duty military support at that
exact same time -- think about the prospect of a reactor-powered U-boat
(the U.S. Navy started its own uranium program at this time for exactly
this reason).

Post by Chris
When Frisch & Peierls wrote the MAUD report, they pretty much ignored
the possibilities of a reactor creating 94 to use as a bomb. That was
because at the time they wrote it, all of the isolated Plutonium in
the entire world was in the United States.

Minor correction: there was not isolated plutonium anywhere in the
world. In fact it had never even been detected - it was simply a
theoretical possibility (though a very likely one).

Post by Chris
While the exact same
situation held for U-235,

Ditto: None separated here either, although there were some good
measurements with natural uranium giving a fair (not great) bounding
estimate of its properties (and used by F-P).

Post by Chris
due to their work with natural uranium they
were confident that the 235 isotope of Uranium would be fissile. While
the math suggested that Pu239 should be fissile, there was simply no
guarantee, and so F+P felt that it would be incredibly foolish to
spend all the resources necessary to isolate 94 to test it to see if
it worked. As an example, even as great a physicist as Fermi doubted
that 94 would make a good bomb in Autumn 1940 [1], because he hadn't
seen the results from Seaborg showing that it would make a good bomb.
Some other theorists thought it would, but it was not at all a clear-
cut thing.
So the reason that the US pursued plutonium production with such
intensity was largely because they had been the first to isolate it.
That was because the US had something of a monopoly in atom smashers
at this point- largely due Lawrence and his team at Berkeley. So
without changing that and giving the Germans a lot more experience
with high energy physics I am doubtful that they would commit to a
plutonium production path to the Bomb,...

This partly points out a weakness in German experimental physics. Japan,
with a small relatively undistinguished and immature physics community
and an economy smaller and poorer than Germany's, had a cyclotron and
Germany didn't. They could have built one - but didn't bother and so had
no good strong experimental neutron source.

But once a reactor is built then this problem (almost) entirely goes away.

The Germans (exact date I am not sure of at the moment) did realize the
weapons potential of plutonium even though the didn't have any and made
no great effort to make any. This realization, whenever it came, would
have allowed immediate militarization of civilian reactor project (or
conversion of a Naval power reactor program).

Note, BTW, that I ignore the Norwegian heavy water plant and address
only the possibility of German heavy water production in their own
plants. The Vemork plant was just barely capable of supplying enough
heavy water to set up a single experimental reactor late in the war - it
was inadequate for anything more than pure science.

[William Black]

Post by Carey
The Germans (exact date I am not sure of at the moment) did realize the
weapons potential of plutonium

At what date did they realise that an atom bomb was even possible?

[careysub]

Post by William Black

Post by Carey
The Germans (exact date I am not sure of at the moment) did realize the
weapons potential of plutonium

At what date did they realise that an atom bomb was even possible?

Well the possibility was widely accepted around the world in 1939.

What you are really meaning I think is "realize that is was
practically achievable" (barring scientific surprise).

It is not as easy to trace this as exactly as it is in the UK and US,
but it was around the time the U.S. accepted the likelihood - which
was the National Academy of Sciences report in November 1941. This led
immediately to establishing the pre-MED S-1 project (first week of
December), which then established the basis for the spring 1942 MED
approval.

An operating reactor would have greatly accelerated all aspects of
fission research and led to a much earlier understanding of the
prospects for a bomb.

[William Black]

Post by careysub

Post by William Black

Post by Carey
The Germans (exact date I am not sure of at the moment) did realize the
weapons potential of plutonium

At what date did they realise that an atom bomb was even possible?

Well the possibility was widely accepted around the world in 1939.
What you are really meaning I think is "realize that is was
practically achievable" (barring scientific surprise).
It is not as easy to trace this as exactly as it is in the UK and US,
but it was around the time the U.S. accepted the likelihood - which
was the National Academy of Sciences report in November 1941.

Is there any proof of this?

[Carey]

Post by William Black

Post by careysub

Post by William Black

Post by Carey
The Germans (exact date I am not sure of at the moment) did realize the
weapons potential of plutonium

At what date did they realise that an atom bomb was even possible?

Well the possibility was widely accepted around the world in 1939.
What you are really meaning I think is "realize that is was
practically achievable" (barring scientific surprise).
It is not as easy to trace this as exactly as it is in the UK and US,
but it was around the time the U.S. accepted the likelihood - which
was the National Academy of Sciences report in November 1941.

Is there any proof of this?

Yes.

The Diebener group wrote a report in Feb. 1942 giving an estimate of the
critical mass of plutonium for a bomb. The realization that plutonium
was usable in a bomb must necessarily predate this report by some period
of time.

[William Black]

Post by Carey

Post by William Black

Post by careysub

Post by William Black

Post by Carey
The Germans (exact date I am not sure of at the moment) did realize the
weapons potential of plutonium

At what date did they realise that an atom bomb was even possible?

Well the possibility was widely accepted around the world in 1939.
What you are really meaning I think is "realize that is was
practically achievable" (barring scientific surprise).
It is not as easy to trace this as exactly as it is in the UK and US,
but it was around the time the U.S. accepted the likelihood - which
was the National Academy of Sciences report in November 1941.

Is there any proof of this?

Yes.
The Diebener group wrote a report in Feb. 1942 giving an estimate of the
critical mass of plutonium for a bomb. The realization that plutonium
was usable in a bomb must necessarily predate this report by some period
of time.

So they're well over a year behind the British because they've no means
of Plutonium extraction yet and the British were going for a Uranium device.

[careysub]

Post by William Black

Post by Carey

Post by William Black

Post by careysub

Post by William Black

Post by Carey
The Germans (exact date I am not sure of at the moment) did realize the
weapons potential of plutonium

At what date did they realise that an atom bomb was even possible?

Well the possibility was widely accepted around the world in 1939.
What you are really meaning I think is "realize that is was
practically achievable" (barring scientific surprise).
It is not as easy to trace this as exactly as it is in the UK and US,
but it was around the time the U.S. accepted the likelihood - which
was the National Academy of Sciences report in November 1941.

Is there any proof of this?

Yes.
The Diebener group wrote a report in Feb. 1942 giving an estimate of the
critical mass of plutonium for a bomb. The realization that plutonium
was usable in a bomb must necessarily predate this report by some period
of time.

So they're well over a year behind the British because they've no means
of Plutonium extraction yet and the British were going for a Uranium device.

They are so far out of the running that one might suggest that by 1945
they never even reached the status of the British final MAUD report in
1941 (the equation is not precise of course - instead of a prototype
gaseous enrichment stage the Germans had a subcritical assembly).

[Chris]

Post by Carey
AH, but notice I did not say "all in" on a bomb - I said "all in" on
"large scale uranium-heavy water critical experiments" using the actual
contemporary French research program as a model.

How much actual money were Halban, Curie and Kowarski getting in 1940?
I admit that most of my impression of them as a poorly funded weak
step-sister is after they fled to Britain and then Quebec, but they
did not seem like they were getting resources on a level anywhere near
sufficient to get a reactor quickly. The British during and after the
MAUD Committee/Report felt that the primary value of reactors was
after the war, for industrial purposes- and funded the project
accordingly. Were the French any different?

While I admit that the Nazi's LOVED unnecessarily technological and
expensive ways to achieve simple things, would even they feel
interested in putting a large amount of money into reactors for such a
long time horizon? Especially given that coal is practically the one
resource that Germany has in abundance, that seems unlikely to me.
(They did have problems with delivery and, by 1942, manpower in the
mines, but coal was not a limiting factor for the German economy,
certainly not one worth blowing a lot of money on.)

Post by Carey
The Germans could even have gotten heavy duty military support at that
exact same time -- think about the prospect of a reactor-powered U-boat
(the U.S. Navy started its own uranium program at this time for exactly
this reason).

1946-1962_ almost 15 years ago, this program was a minor effort, a
few scientists and no more. Again, if the United States Navy- on the
cusp of building more aircraft carriers than anyone can possibly
imagine- didn't think it could afford to run a decent size program
that would complete in time to be useful for the war, I have severe
doubts about the Germans ability to, or the Germans deciding it would
be a good idea to launch a major program.

[Re: MAUD report]

Post by Carey
Minor correction: there was not isolated plutonium anywhere in the
world. In fact it had never even been detected - it was simply a
theoretical possibility (though a very likely one).

I must have misunderstood the following sentence:

"Plutonium, element 94, named after the planet Pluto, was discovered
by Glenn Seaborg, Edwin McMillan, Kennedy, and Arthur Wahl in 1940 at
Berkeley by bombarding uranium with deuterons from the 60 inch
cyclotron."

Source: http://nuclearweaponarchive.org/Nwfaq/Nfaq6.html

I took from that Seaborg and Co. had detected Pu in 1940; since the
MAUD Report was finished in July 1941 I remembered the US as having
isolated Plutonium by then- though I can't find a source more
authoritative than wiki that it had been. (Wiki, at least the moment,
claims that on March 28th, 1941 Segre, Seaborg, and Co. showed that
Pu-239 was fissioned by slow neutrons. That was three months before
the MAUD report, so even if they hadn't isolated it, they knew the
most important answer- that it was fissionable- before the MAUD
report.)

[Re: U-235]

Post by Carey
Ditto: None separated here either, although there were some good
measurements with natural uranium giving a fair (not great) bounding
estimate of its properties (and used by F-P).

You are exactly correct- I had misread my notes from Gowing. The
British had asked Dr. Nier at Uof Minnesota to isolate some U-235 to
confirm it's cross section properties, but he had run into trouble and
did not finish until a few months after the MAUD report was finished.
I didn't read far enough in my notes to find the second reference.
Wiki says that Seaborg confirmed U-235's fissionability 'later' in
1941 than his demonstration of Pu-239 with Segre at the end of March.

[Re: lack of high energy physics experience in Germany]

Post by Carey
This partly points out a weakness in German experimental physics.

Indeed, but in order to fix this we need to probably move before
1938.

Post by Carey
But once a reactor is built then this problem (almost) entirely goes away.

And building a reactor is not a quick process, unless you have the
Americans resources. And that expense and difficulty, for little gain,
is why I doubt that anyone else would pursue a reactor with a project
of the scale necessary to achieve it during the war.

Chris Manteuffel

[Carey]

Post by Chris

Post by Carey
AH, but notice I did not say "all in" on a bomb - I said "all in" on
"large scale uranium-heavy water critical experiments" using the actual
contemporary French research program as a model.

How much actual money were Halban, Curie and Kowarski getting in 1940?

How about a million francs from the corporation Union Minière du Haut
Katanga?

Far more than any group in the United States.

Enough to corner the world's then existing supply of heavy water.

Enough to supply five tons of uranium (no group in the U.S. had this
much until well into 1942).

They had all the money they could use at the time.

Post by Chris
I admit that most of my impression of them as a poorly funded weak
step-sister is after they fled to Britain and then Quebec,

This gives you no reference point whatsoever. At that time Groves
regarded them as a nuisance, what with their French patents on reactor
technology and all. He treated them as a side show (and a possible
security risk).

Post by Chris
but they
did not seem like they were getting resources on a level anywhere near
sufficient to get a reactor quickly. The British during and after the
MAUD Committee/Report felt that the primary value of reactors was
after the war, for industrial purposes- and funded the project
accordingly. Were the French any different?

Very, very different. But for the war they were well on track to build
the world's first nuclear reactor.

Post by Chris
While I admit that the Nazi's LOVED unnecessarily technological and
expensive ways to achieve simple things, would even they feel
interested in putting a large amount of money into reactors for such a
long time horizon? Especially given that coal is practically the one
resource that Germany has in abundance, that seems unlikely to me.
(They did have problems with delivery and, by 1942, manpower in the
mines, but coal was not a limiting factor for the German economy,
certainly not one worth blowing a lot of money on.)

Post by Carey
The Germans could even have gotten heavy duty military support at that
exact same time -- think about the prospect of a reactor-powered U-boat
(the U.S. Navy started its own uranium program at this time for exactly
this reason).

1946-1962_ almost 15 years ago, this program was a minor effort, a
few scientists and no more.

$240,000 in 1940 (~$3 million in today's money). This was something like
100 times the amount the U.S. was setting aside for civilian fission
research at the same time. It was about the right amount of resources
for Abelson to absorb at the time.

Post by Chris
Again, if the United States Navy- on the
cusp of building more aircraft carriers than anyone can possibly
imagine- didn't think it could afford to run a decent size program
that would complete in time to be useful for the war,

The program remained relatively modest for the next few years, but it
built a working uranium enrichment plant (something the British, the
Germans and the Japanese did not have). That it did not greatly expand
is in large part due to the U.S. government choosing to invest billions
in the Manhattan Project managed by the Army.

Post by Chris
I have severe
doubts about the Germans ability to, or the Germans deciding it would
be a good idea to launch a major program.

Because the Germans were loathe to invest in super-weapons? Or novel
high-tech weapons with a slight chance of being available in time to
affect the war?

This argument would "prove" the V-2 program to be an absurdity, so too
their rocket or jet plane programs, etc.

The U.S. ability to prevail in the war did not depend on a submarine
blockade of its enemies, so a nuclear submarine could be afforded a
lower priority. Germany needed super-submarines to win a war against
Britain.

Post by Chris
[Re: MAUD report]

Post by Carey
Minor correction: there was not isolated plutonium anywhere in the
world. In fact it had never even been detected - it was simply a
theoretical possibility (though a very likely one).

"Plutonium, element 94, named after the planet Pluto, was discovered
by Glenn Seaborg, Edwin McMillan, Kennedy, and Arthur Wahl in 1940 at
Berkeley by bombarding uranium with deuterons from the 60 inch
cyclotron."
Source: http://nuclearweaponarchive.org/Nwfaq/Nfaq6.html
I took from that Seaborg and Co. had detected Pu in 1940; since the
MAUD Report was finished in July 1941 I remembered the US as having
isolated Plutonium by then- though I can't find a source more
authoritative than wiki that it had been. (Wiki, at least the moment,
claims that on March 28th, 1941 Segre, Seaborg, and Co. showed that
Pu-239 was fissioned by slow neutrons. That was three months before
the MAUD report, so even if they hadn't isolated it, they knew the
most important answer- that it was fissionable- before the MAUD
report.)

You are confusing Frisch and Peierls memorandum of March 1940 with the
MAUD report that developed out of it. My comments referred to F&P, I
figured you were just misnaming it MAUD.

Post by Chris
[Re: U-235]

Post by Carey
Ditto: None separated here either, although there were some good
measurements with natural uranium giving a fair (not great) bounding
estimate of its properties (and used by F-P).

You are exactly correct- I had misread my notes from Gowing. The
British had asked Dr. Nier at Uof Minnesota to isolate some U-235 to
confirm it's cross section properties, but he had run into trouble and
did not finish until a few months after the MAUD report was finished.
I didn't read far enough in my notes to find the second reference.
Wiki says that Seaborg confirmed U-235's fissionability 'later' in
1941

There was experimental evidence supporting it in the spring of 1940,
which got stronger as the year progressed.

Post by Chris
than his demonstration of Pu-239 with Segre at the end of March.
[Re: lack of high energy physics experience in Germany]

Post by Carey
This partly points out a weakness in German experimental physics.

Indeed, but in order to fix this we need to probably move before
1938.

And what was stopping them? In a year and a half Lawrence built two
cyclotrons - the world's first, and a second that was 11 inches and had
a million eV beam. This was enough for neutron work. Ten years later,
why didn't the Germans have several?

(The Germans could have done a lot more with their existing
electrostatic and Cockcroft-Walton accelerators too when it comes to that.)

If in late 1939, when the French were revving up their criticality
experiments, the Germans had decided a significant program was called
for, they could have had a large cyclotron running before the end of 1940.

Post by Chris

Post by Carey
But once a reactor is built then this problem (almost) entirely goes away.

And building a reactor is not a quick process, unless you have the
Americans resources.

You need enough uranium and moderator, and then it is quite
straightforward to build.

Germany had plenty of uranium on hand, and was well equipped to purify
it to reactor grade, and they had an excellent heavy water enrichment
process (the Girdler Sulfide process) which is still the method of
choice today.

If you don't bother, then it takes forever. If you make it priority then
a year or so is sufficient (mostly for the heavy water production).

Post by Chris
And that expense and difficulty, for little gain,
is why I doubt that anyone else would pursue a reactor with a project
of the scale necessary to achieve it during the war.

Your argument has a certain circularity to it. The fact that Germany
didn't pursue the possibility (known to everyone, being actual history)
is being offered as evidence that it couldn't have happened differently.
This position makes the whole point of examining alternate possibilities
moot.

Germany's nuclear research program was inferior on many fronts - but not
because of a lack of any resources. Eventually it would have run into
that if they went for a bomb, but it failed at a much lower level of
activity when resources and schedule weren't even challenged.

Without assuming any foresight not possessed by real French, Japanese,
British, or Americans at the time Germany could have gotten much farther
than they did. As I said, a plausible scenario for Germany to actually
pursue a bomb can be constructed if you only assume they replicated what
others were doing at the time, but threw in more resources early on (we
talking millions of dollars, not tens or hundreds of millions).

[Chris]

Post by Carey
How about a million francs from the corporation Union Minière du Haut
Katanga?

I did not know it was that large. Where could I read more about the
work of Joliot-Curie and Co. before the fall of France?

I am intrigued that it was the Belgians who were paying for the
development. While I know that the French and Germans had decent
supplies of coal, I don't know about the Belgians- was the primary
purpose of this research to power Belgium? Or was the primary purpose
to develop a method of using the high quality uranium from Katanga, to
make those mines more economically valuable?

Post by Carey
Very, very different. But for the war they were well on track to build
the world's first nuclear reactor.

That does indeed change my argument. Before it was based on the idea
that reactors were for power, and no one was interested enough in more
power to pay lots of money for a nuclear plant. Now that I know that a
Belgian company was interested enough to invest, then the idea of the
Germans doing so is not so far fetched.

Post by Carey
The U.S. ability to prevail in the war did not depend on a submarine
blockade of its enemies, so a nuclear submarine could be afforded a
lower priority. Germany needed super-submarines to win a war against
Britain.

And the snorkel, patented in 1916, was a much cheaper option than
nuclear power. And even here the Germans did not adopt it until late
in the war; they captured a pair of Dutch boats in 1940 that had
snorkels, and got their first one onto a boat in 1943 (as losses to
airplanes mounted) and by 1944 they had them operational. The KM was a
surprisingly reactive rather than aggressive force during much of the
war.

(And that leaves aside the Type XXI construction fiasco, courtesy of
one Albert Speer.)

[Re: cyclotrons]

Post by Carey
Ten years later, why didn't the Germans have several?

I don't really know. Why didn't they? It would seem like it was the
bare minimum necessary to keep up with the frontiers of physics at the
time, but the Germans seem to have ignored the field completely. Why?

Post by Carey
Your argument has a certain circularity to it. The fact that Germany
didn't pursue the possibility (known to everyone, being actual history)
is being offered as evidence that it couldn't have happened differently.

No, it was based on the idea (since shown to be faulty) that no one
was willing to pay enough for a major program purely for power
reactors: it was only once Seaborg and Co. demonstrated that plutonium
was a viable weapon that reactors became something worth developing
quickly.

Post by Carey
Without assuming any foresight not possessed by real French, Japanese,
British, or Americans at the time Germany could have gotten much farther
than they did. As I said, a plausible scenario for Germany to actually
pursue a bomb can be constructed if you only assume they replicated what
others were doing at the time, but threw in more resources early on (we
talking millions of dollars, not tens or hundreds of millions).

I still think it's a stretch, because of the necessity of finding the
single easy option in a very expensive war, but I concede that it is
more likely than I had credited before.

Chris Manteuffel

[careysub]

Post by Chris

Post by Carey
How about a million francs from the corporation Union Minière du Haut
Katanga?

I did not know it was that large. Where could I read more about the
work of Joliot-Curie and Co. before the fall of France?

Try Weart's "Scientists in Power".

Post by Chris
I am intrigued that it was the Belgians who were paying for the
development. While I know that the French and Germans had decent
supplies of coal, I don't know about the Belgians- was the primary
purpose of this research to power Belgium? Or was the primary purpose
to develop a method of using the high quality uranium from Katanga, to
make those mines more economically valuable?

The latter. This was a private venture by both UMHK and the Paris
scientists to make money, not any sort of national program.

Post by Chris

Post by Carey
Very, very different. But for the war they were well on track to build
the world's first nuclear reactor.

That does indeed change my argument. Before it was based on the idea
that reactors were for power, and no one was interested enough in more
power to pay lots of money for a nuclear plant. Now that I know that a
Belgian company was interested enough to invest, then the idea of the
Germans doing so is not so far fetched.

Remember that the initial research required to develop the parameters
of a industrial scale reactor is not that much money. It is only when
one decides to build the actual industrial scale plant that really big
bucks are required.

UHMK and the French scientists were just trying to secure ownership of
the process.

Post by Chris

Post by Carey
The U.S. ability to prevail in the war did not depend on a submarine
blockade of its enemies, so a nuclear submarine could be afforded a
lower priority. Germany needed super-submarines to win a war against
Britain.

And the snorkel, patented in 1916, was a much cheaper option than
nuclear power. And even here the Germans did not adopt it until late
in the war; they captured a pair of Dutch boats in 1940 that had
snorkels, and got their first one onto a boat in 1943 (as losses to
airplanes mounted) and by 1944 they had them operational. The KM was a
surprisingly reactive rather than aggressive force during much of the
war.
(And that leaves aside the Type XXI construction fiasco, courtesy of
one Albert Speer.)

Irrespective of the Kriegsmarine's enthusiasm, interest by Fritz Todt
- Speer's predecessor - could have provided the seed money for the
project.

Post by Chris
[Re: cyclotrons]

Post by Carey
Ten years later, why didn't the Germans have several?

I don't really know. Why didn't they? It would seem like it was the
bare minimum necessary to keep up with the frontiers of physics at the
time, but the Germans seem to have ignored the field completely. Why?

The desultory performance of German nuclear research during the war
seems to me to be a continuation of desultory behavior before the war.
It took Bothe almost 7 years (1937-1944) from deciding to build one to
getting one in operation. France had one nearly ready for operation in
1940 (and it became the only one available to Germany once they go it
going). There do not seem to have been any German physics research
leaders on a caliber with Lawrence.

...

Post by Chris

Post by Carey
Without assuming any foresight not possessed by real French, Japanese,
British, or Americans at the time Germany could have gotten much farther
than they did. As I said, a plausible scenario for Germany to actually
pursue a bomb can be constructed if you only assume they replicated what
others were doing at the time, but threw in more resources early on (we
talking millions of dollars, not tens or hundreds of millions).

I still think it's a stretch, because of the necessity of finding the
single easy option in a very expensive war, but I concede that it is
more likely than I had credited before.

The path existed, and it could have been found (the British discovered
one successful path themselves - gaseous diffusion) without a lot of
money to do the necessary initial investigations.

Producing enough heavy water for a reactor would be the biggest
expense.

The U.S. spent $15.8 million to build three heavy water plants,
starting in late 1942 and had an operating heavy water reactor early
in 1944.

Germany could easily have come up with $15.8 million (30 million
Reichsmarks) in early 1940
(say) and have an operating reactor in 1941. The overall size of the
German economy was around 90 billion RM, and they were spending 10
billion RM annually in industrial investments.

All they would have had to do was
replicate what the U.S. and Canada actually did (and they would have
had multi-plant HW production redundancy to boot).

What is particularly strange is that in late 1943, when resources
really were tight, and Germany was clearly facing the prospect of
defeat, and a wartime reactor project no longer made sense at all,
that is when they started to build a heavy water plant at Leuna. If
they had
the cash then, they certainly could have put it up earlier.

For reference, the V-2 program alone would consume 2 billion RM
late in the war.

[Wesley Mouch]

That is easy: declaring war on Germany in the first place. All
Hitler wanted to do was return Europe to its pre-1914 boundaries,
but without the Austro-Hungarian empire thing. It would have been a
rational, sensible arrangement.

Instead, the stupid British just had to go to war.

[Stephen Graham]

Post by Wesley Mouch
That is easy: declaring war on Germany in the first place. All
Hitler wanted to do was return Europe to its pre-1914 boundaries,
but without the Austro-Hungarian empire thing. It would have been a
rational, sensible arrangement.

You'll have to specify why 1914 is to be preferred to, say, 1860. Or
1810. Or 1740.

[Dave Smith]

Post by Wesley Mouch
That is easy: declaring war on Germany in the first place. All
Hitler wanted to do was return Europe to its pre-1914 boundaries,
but without the Austro-Hungarian empire thing. It would have been a
rational, sensible arrangement.
Instead, the stupid British just had to go to war.

Baloney!!!! Hitler's aspirations extended far beyond restoring
Germany's borders to pre 1914 boundaries. You conveniently overlook
lebensraum, which justified the Nazi Germany expansionist goals. Then
there were the brutal tactics of the Nazi politics and they fought their
way to government, beating and killing their opponents, the way they
were dealing with Jews and other minorities. The British had a treaty
that bound them to protect Poland and they were appalled by the Nazi
tactics.

[careysub]

Post by Wesley Mouch
That is easy: declaring war on Germany in the first place. All
Hitler wanted to do was return Europe to its pre-1914 boundaries,
but without the Austro-Hungarian empire thing. It would have been a
rational, sensible arrangement.

All?

What about the bit where all of the "inferior races" get enslaved and/
or murdered?

[Louis C]

Post by Wesley Mouch
All
Hitler wanted to do was return Europe to its pre-1914 boundaries,
but without the Austro-Hungarian empire thing. It would have been a
rational, sensible arrangement.

"I should like to make the following preliminary remarks: The demand
for restoration of the frontiers of 1914 is a political absurdity of
such proportions and consequences as to make it seem a crime.
...
The boundaries of the year 1914 mean nothing at all for the German
future. Neither did they provide a defense of the past, nor would they
contain any strength for the future. Through them the German nation
will neither achieve its inner integrity, nor will its sustenance be
safeguarded by them, nor do these boundaries, viewed from the military
standpoint, seem expedient or even satisfactory, nor finally can they
improve the relation in which we at present find ourselves toward the
other world powers, or, better expressed, the real world powers. The
lag behind England will not be caught up, the magnitude of the Union
will not be achieved; not even France would experience a material
diminution of her world-political importance.
...
As opposed to this, we National Socialists must hold unflinchingly to
our aim in foreign policy, namely, to secure for the German people the
land and soil to which they are entitled on this earth."

Translation: Hitler didn't want a return to the 1914 borders, he
considered them inadequate and he wanted more.

Oh, and by the way, the above is from Mein Kampf, chapter XIV.


LC

[Michele]

"Wesley Mouch" <***@randnayme.test> ha scritto nel messaggio news:***@rip.ax.lt...

Let's give this the shortest shrift possible.

Post by Wesley Mouch
That is easy: declaring war on Germany in the first place. All
Hitler wanted to do was return Europe to its pre-1914 boundaries,

You've never heard about Lebensraum and the theories about inferior races,
evidently.

Post by Wesley Mouch
but without the Austro-Hungarian empire thing.

One would wonder what was to be of the big hole that Austria-Hungary would
be. If we are to judge by what Hitler did, as opposed to what he preached
and your peculiar personal ideas about his supposed intentions, we see that
that various parts of that hole would be:
a) directly annexed by Germany, or
b) turned into German satellites, either b1) as a protectorate (de iure a
satellite) or b2) puppet states (de facto satellites), or
c) allowed to be subservient German allies.

No wonder lots of people, both in the territories involved and elsewhere,
did not think this to be a great idea.

But let's ignore the Austro-Hungarian black hole and let's look elsewhere.
Returning to the 1914 borders would be somewhat an annoyance, outside of the
old Hapsburg empire, to:
- the Poles (they're losing independence),
- the Finns (ditto),
- the Lithuanians, Latvians and Estonians (ditto),
- the French (they'd be losing important border regions),
- the Belgians (ditto),
- the Danes (ditto).

It would have been a

Post by Wesley Mouch
rational, sensible arrangement.

Not to most of the folk mentioned above, you know.

But there's more. If all that Hitler wanted was to return to the 1914
borders, why did he always say that he wasn't interested in Alsace and
Lorraine? Either he was insincere (in which case, why should one trust him
when he allegedly claimed he only wanted the 1914 borders) or he did _not_
want to return to the 1914 borders in that case.
And why did the Nazis invade Poland beyond the old German border there? If
the 1914 border was the objective, surely they should have stopped there?

Post by Wesley Mouch
Instead, the stupid British just had to go to war.

Fortunately they were
a) not that stupid and
b) not alone, the French also saw the writing on the wall you don't seem to
be able to see, and by "British" here one has to mean the whole BCE, Canada,
South Africa, Australia, New Zealand all had their own declarations of war.

[Wesley Mouch]

Post by Louis C

Post by Wesley Mouch
All
Hitler wanted to do was return Europe to its pre-1914 boundaries,
but without the Austro-Hungarian empire thing. It would have been a
rational, sensible arrangement.

Translation: Hitler didn't want a return to the 1914 borders, he
considered them inadequate and he wanted more.

Pay attention to what politicians do, not what they say.

Everything Hitler did prior to the war: the Anschluss with Austria,
the return of the Sudetenland, the desire for Danzig to return to
the Reich, the wish for the return of the lands lost to Poland after
ww1 - all that, plus the dismemberment of Czechoslovakia in March of
1939, where Poland got a piece, Hungary got a bit - did Rumania get
anything?

All that screams '1914 Borders!'

[William Black]

Post by Wesley Mouch

Post by Louis C

Post by Wesley Mouch
All
Hitler wanted to do was return Europe to its pre-1914 boundaries,
but without the Austro-Hungarian empire thing. It would have been a
rational, sensible arrangement.

Translation: Hitler didn't want a return to the 1914 borders, he
considered them inadequate and he wanted more.

Pay attention to what politicians do, not what they say.
Everything Hitler did prior to the war: the Anschluss with Austria,
the return of the Sudetenland, the desire for Danzig to return to
the Reich, the wish for the return of the lands lost to Poland after
ww1 - all that, plus the dismemberment of Czechoslovakia in March of
1939, where Poland got a piece, Hungary got a bit - did Rumania get
anything?
All that screams '1914 Borders!'

Actually it screams 'This mad bastard is going to get us all killed if
he isn't careful'.

[Stephen Graham]

Post by Wesley Mouch
Everything Hitler did prior to the war: the Anschluss with Austria,

Oddly enough, in 1914, Austria was part of that "Austro-Hungarian empire
thing" and not part of Germany.

Post by Wesley Mouch
the return of the Sudetenland

Return? In 1914, the Sudetenland was part of that "Austro-Hungarian
empire thing" and not part of Germany.

Post by Wesley Mouch
All that screams '1914 Borders!'

Other than the parts that had nothing to do with Germany's 1914 borders?

[Michele]

Post by Wesley Mouch

Post by Louis C

Post by Wesley Mouch
All
Hitler wanted to do was return Europe to its pre-1914 boundaries,
but without the Austro-Hungarian empire thing. It would have been a
rational, sensible arrangement.

Translation: Hitler didn't want a return to the 1914 borders, he
considered them inadequate and he wanted more.

Pay attention to what politicians do, not what they say.

For instance, Hitler did nothing to get back the 1914 German borders with
France, Denmark and Belgium... and here what he said was consistent with
what he did, or rather did not do.

So maybe he wasn't actually interested in the 1914 borders, after all.
Judging from what he did.

Post by Wesley Mouch
Everything Hitler did prior to the war: the Anschluss with Austria,

I'd say "of" Austria.
There is the problem that you claimed that Hitler wanted the 1914 borders,
without Austria-Hungary. Now, you did _not_ state what, in your mind, Hitler
would want to do with the territories that in 1914 were part of that empire.
Therefore, whatever has to do with that, is no proof, either direction, of
whether your peculiar claim was sincere or not.

Post by Wesley Mouch
the return of the Sudetenland,

The return of the Sudeten to the power that controlled them in 1914? That
was Austria-Hungary, you know. No, you probably don't.

the desire for Danzig to return to

Post by Wesley Mouch
the Reich, the wish for the return of the lands lost to Poland after
ww1 - all that, plus the dismemberment of Czechoslovakia in March of
1939, where Poland got a piece, Hungary got a bit - did Rumania get
anything?

Since you are making rather bold statements about the intentions of one of
the least dependable politicians in history, have you considered doing your
own homework and ascertaining, before making those statements, whether
Rumania got anything or not?

Post by Wesley Mouch
All that screams '1914 Borders!'

All that screams that you would do well to read more and write less.

[e***@yahoo.com.au]

Post by j***@cix.compulink.co.uk

Post by Carey
To hope to change the course of the war Germany would have had to
beat the Manhattan Project by a full year.

Quite so. Doing that isn't really within the realms of credibility. It
needs the German bomb project to have got started immediately on the
discovery of fission, receive vast resources, go down no blind alleys
more than very briefly, and be extremely lucky.
I was thinking more about "could those people have done it, under ideal
circumstances?", which isn't the same thing as getting the chance to do
it.

The profound flaw in the German program was the assumption that a war
would be over in 2 years since Germany would have won by then or due
to her lower levels of reosurces have been totally defeated.

Long wars were impossible for Germany to fight and win due to her
strategic situation so it was 'wrong' even seen as immoral to waste
effort into weapons that would not be ready to help win a short war.
The US was safe behined the paciffic and atlantic ocean with Friendly
english speakers to the north.

This 'idea' worked it's way through all German weapons planning but
especially the atomic program. It let Heisenberg concentrate on
nuclear-reactors first before bombs focus as it let him avoid the
personal question of conscience of either betraying his own country by
not developing the a-bom because he lacked the stomach to develope
atomic bombs that would kill and main thousands. He'd rather make an
atomic power plant. As his Doctoral Student Edward Teller (father
of the h-bomb) noted, all of the mistakes Heisenberg supposedly made
(most are not true) would have been made by others in the US as
well. One made dozens of such mistakes. Hesenbergs heart, he noted,
wasn't in it.

Since it was not possible to produce an atmic bomb in 2 years the best
thing to do was to run a research program to produce an atomic reactor
for power and maybe u-boat propulsion and then use this as a stepping
stone to the bomb.

Hence when it came to the decision to produce heavy water (they knew
they needed about 5-6 tons and in fact needed only 3-4) it was decided
to rely on "Free" Norweigen heavy water derived from a byproduct of
electrolysis since this did not distract German industry from
producing the weapons Germany needed to prevail and survive in the
next 6-12 months. The production rate of Norweigne heavy water of
100kg/month was to have been increased to 300kg/ month by installing
electrolysis cells in 2-3 other Nowweigne dams. Thus within 1 year or
so enough heavy water would be available. Sabotage of the
electrolysis cells and heavy water storage tanks completely delayed
the program while destruction of the product in transport destroyed
any hope of getting the full 4-5 tons.

It would have been possible to start build heavy water plants in
Germany almost immediatly using 'low temperature, low pressure
fractional distillation' that could produce about 8-10 tons year on
top of the Nowrweigne supplies: Basically waste heat from
petrochemical, iron & steal, power stations is ued to warm water to
about 54 degree C in a low pressure environment to split of the heavy
water only small amounts of electricity for opperation of the vaccum
pumps is required. It is not particulary expensive but it does cost
more than 'free norweigen water' and it does not require the building
of 100m tall distillation columns that might be bombed. However this
modest expense was not pursued despite the urgings of several
physicists. It was instead decided to develop even more efficient
heavy water production methods instead of the intermediate fractional
distillation method. More sophisticated heavy water production
methods were succesfully developed. (Karl Hermann-Geibe developed the
duel temperature Hydrogen-suplide process in 1943 at IG Farben Leuna,
it is now used to feed Canada CANDU reactors) by then it was too late
to industrialise with this very efficient program.

The Germans did know how to build a reactor by 1944 and proabably much
earlier, had they not been hampered by inadaquet supplies of heavy
warter, bombings of their labouratories (including destruction of no
less than TWO ultracentrifuges, repeated relocations they would have
run a reactor well before close of war.

If this 'proof' occured then a bomb program would certainly be highly
prioritised and any 'nay sayers' side lined.

So, had they simply built a fractional distillation plant in say
Silesia rather than rely entirely on insecure Norweigen heavy water
they almost certainly would've had a reactor before wars end.

The question of gaseous diffusion for Uranium enrichment was dismissed
as too expensive. Germany did develop two systems which did actually
produce enriched urnaium, the 'uranium sluice' which chopped a
gaseous beam of uranium hexafluride with a mechanical chopper so that
the lighter U235 spread to the tips and tails and could be further
chopped off (it ran at only 500 rpm and was not hioghly stressed) and
the ultra centrifuge which was actually ordered in quantities of
nearlky a 1000 from the Anschutz company. it produced a few grams of
6% enriched uranium. The prototypes were destroyed no less than 2
times!

Its a long shot, but ultra centrifuges are up to 50 times more
efficient than gaseous diffusion and would be affordable for Germany.

There were two other programs, use of a cyclotron by a Dr Martens at
the German navy (for propulsion) and some initial work by Manfred von
Ardenn who actually had a better ion source (his von Ardenne source)
than the US did, the ion source is the critical components. He was
talked out of bomb research by Max Plank. Another program, used
photochemical technques that relied on Uranium 235 different behaviour
to U238 in which great hope was placed.

[ThePro]

On 5 nov, 00:38, ***@yahoo.com.au wrote:
<snip>.

Post by e***@yahoo.com.au
The US was safe behined the paciffic and atlantic ocean with Friendly
english speakers to the north.

If you meant Canada, around 20% of the population speaks French, and I
think in the forties the proportion was higher than now.

<snip>

Pierrot Robert
Chicoutimi, Canada

[careysub]

On Nov 4, 9:38 pm, ***@yahoo.com.au wrote:
...

Post by e***@yahoo.com.au
This 'idea' worked it's way through all German weapons planning but
especially the atomic program. It let Heisenberg concentrate on
nuclear-reactors first before bombs focus as it let him avoid the
personal question of conscience of either betraying his own country by
not developing the a-bom because he lacked the stomach to develope
atomic bombs that would kill and main thousands. He'd rather make an
atomic power plant. As his Doctoral Student Edward Teller (father
of the h-bomb) noted, all of the mistakes Heisenberg supposedly made
(most are not true) would have been made by others in the US as
well. One made dozens of such mistakes. Hesenbergs heart, he noted,
wasn't in it.

This is a historical fantasy - no wise "German weapons planning"
entity of this sort existed, much less one that tenderly managed the
conscience of one the nation's scientists.

Post by e***@yahoo.com.au
Since it was not possible to produce an atmic bomb in 2 years the best
thing to do was to run a research program to produce an atomic reactor
for power and maybe u-boat propulsion and then use this as a stepping
stone to the bomb.

This is rationale formulated long after the war being grafted on to
the haphazard collection of groups and decisions on many narrow
questions.

Post by e***@yahoo.com.au
Hence when it came to the decision to produce heavy water (they knew
they needed about 5-6 tons and in fact needed only 3-4) it was decided
to rely on "Free" Norweigen heavy water derived from a byproduct of
electrolysis since this did not distract German industry from
producing the weapons Germany needed to prevail and survive in the
next 6-12 months.

"It was decided..."? By whom? What entity made this decision and when?
Where can a citation to it be found?

Post by e***@yahoo.com.au
The production rate of Norweigne heavy water of
100kg/month was to have been increased to 300kg/ month by installing
electrolysis cells in 2-3 other Nowweigne dams.

Time frame here - this is mid 1942 when Norsk-Hydro production as hit
a peak performance of 125 kg/month. The expansion up to perhaps 400 kg/
month by applying the Harteck-Suess catalytic exchange process to the
cascade was being discussed in July based on some preliminary
experiments.If this took a year to implement (not unreasonable since
this new technology had to be made ready for a production system),
then this bounty of D2O would start to flow in July 1943 - allowing
completion of a heavy water reactor in late 1943: a year after Fermi
Dec. 1942), instead of the year before (~ late 1941) if a bomb was to
be a possibility.

In late 1941 Norsk-Hydro had deliverd only 850 kg, not the 5 tonnes
needed for a critical system.

Also note that the predicted production rates might never have
materialized. When the plant was sabotaged in Feb. 1943 the Harteck-
Suess modification had not been started, and the Vemork Plant
production rate had actually fallen from its mid 1942 peak. The
technology was a bit finicky.

Post by e***@yahoo.com.au
Thus within 1 year or
so enough heavy water would be available. Sabotage of the
electrolysis cells and heavy water storage tanks completely delayed
the program while destruction of the product in transport destroyed
any hope of getting the full 4-5 tons.
It would have been possible to start build heavy water plants in
Germany almost immediatly using 'low temperature, low pressure
fractional distillation' that could produce about 8-10 tons year on
top of the Nowrweigne supplies: Basically waste heat from
petrochemical, iron & steal, power stations is ued to warm water to
about 54 degree C in a low pressure environment to split of the heavy
water only small amounts of electricity for opperation of the vaccum
pumps is required. It is not particulary expensive but it does cost
more than 'free norweigen water' and it does not require the building
of 100m tall distillation columns that might be bombed. However this
modest expense was not pursued despite the urgings of several
physicists. It was instead decided to develop even more efficient
heavy water production methods instead of the intermediate fractional
distillation method.

A nice account (technically), thanks.

And here we see the crucial decision that extinguished any possibility
of wartime success German program. The one resource that was
critically lacking was time. Any decision to delay an essential
preliminary step in developing atomic energy endangered any chance of
a bomb resulting, any large delay was automatically fatal and this one
was intentional.

Note the mode of thought this reveals - a preference for low cost, low
risk approaches and the lack of any organized drive for expeditious
results.

We have five examples of independent wartime atomic research efforts -
Britain and U.S. (up until late 1941), France (to May 1940), Germany
and Japan (the USSR program is too little, too late for many
reasons).

This is a unique historical experiment - one in which all the players
start at the same time with exactly the same knowledge - but then
initially proceed on their own.

The dominate pattern - shared by the U.S., Germany and Japan - is a
collection of independent research efforts looking at aspects of the
problem of atomic energy but not effectively directed toward quick
results. In Britain the unique breakthrough analysis by F&P initiated
an intense focused program of research on the entire problem of making
an atomic bomb. In France enlightened self-interest on the part of a
world-wise scientific team partnered with the well-funded world
leading producer of uranium, created a drive for early success in
creating that essential enabling step of a controlled chain reaction.

I conclude that getting an effective program initiated was
intrinsically difficult and required at a minimum a powerful
organizational focus on quick results. Even an early Presidential
directive failed to elicit effective action in the U.S., institutional
inertia being too strong; no driving leader or sponsor emerged in
Germany, and the Japanese effort was split then between the Army and
Navy, and left to languish by both.

France never got into the bomb business - but continuing on their path
with their early vigor was driving them straight in that direction,
and they would have found themselves quite naturally but
unintentionally at the brink of bomb making - with a stockpile of
weapon material just waiting to be separated.

Germany could have followed that same path, but lacked anyone with
money saying "do what it takes, spend what you need, but get it done
as soon as you can" - in fact it held many of the opposite.

In Jan. 1940 Harteck wanted to proceed with a German production plant
immediately, but Heisenberg was opposed - he insisted on waiting until
the results of preliminary experiments were obtained. The Army
Ordnance gave the matter a low priority and did nothing, but was
pleased to seize Norwegian resources for nothing. Unless the leading
lights (e.g. Heisenberg) pushed the Army to build large plants
immediately there was nothing going to be built.

Post by e***@yahoo.com.au
More sophisticated heavy water production
methods were succesfully developed. (Karl Hermann-Geibe developed the
duel temperature Hydrogen-suplide process in 1943 at IG Farben Leuna,
it is now used to feed Canada CANDU reactors) by then it was too late
to industrialise with this very efficient program.
The Germans did know how to build a reactor by 1944 and proabably much
earlier, had they not been hampered by inadaquet supplies of heavy
warter, bombings of their labouratories (including destruction of no
less than TWO ultracentrifuges, repeated relocations they would have
run a reactor well before close of war.
If this 'proof' occured then a bomb program would certainly be highly
prioritised and any 'nay sayers' side lined.

The plan to get a reactor in late 1943, instead of pushing to build
one as soon as possible, meant that this "high priority" could only
arrive too late to have any useful result.

The high priority needed to precede the reactor.

[e***@yahoo.com.au]

Post by careysub
...
This is a historical fantasy - no wise "German weapons planning"
entity of this sort existed, much less one that tenderly managed the
conscience of one the nation's scientists.

There us no basis for that opinion apart from perjorative opinions
generated immediatly after WW2.

The Germans made mistakes, so did the allies.

German weapons and armaments planning and production was tightly and
rationally decided through the Armaments ministry (Todt and then
Speer) and through various offices for the three branches: the Heers
Waffenmpt for the Army, for the Luftwaffe via the OKL (ober Komand
der Luftwaffe) and its various branches.

There were some mistakes the He 177 which did not become reliable till
1943, the Me 210/410 in which was poorrly risk was mismanaged and the
Ju 288/Jumo 222 program.

Other countries had the same or more disasters aand aborted programs,
the allies simply could afford to absorb them more.

In part the the Luftwaffe procurement problem arose when the genial
WW1 fighter ace and hero WW1 ace Ernest Udet was ordered to take over
the technical branch of the OKL and refused to sign off on the He 177
unless it could dive bomb. He was not qualitifed for the Job. When
he commited suicide the highly capable Sigfried Kneymeyer took over
and the problems went away.

So I see no basis for that claim, in fact the HWA (Heers Waffen Ampt)
or Army Ordinance Office who were in charge of such things as
procuements, design and R+D did produce a report which calculated a
critical mass for an atomic bomb between 8-100kg, slightly better than
the 2-100kg report of the MAUD committee since the actuall critical
mass of a U235 weapons with a simple U238 temper was around 60kg.

Post by careysub

Post by e***@yahoo.com.au
Since it was not possible to produce an atmic bomb in 2 years the best
thing to do was to run a research program to produce an atomic reactor
for power and maybe u-boat propulsion and then use this as a stepping
stone to the bomb.

This is rationale formulated long after the war being grafted on to
the haphazard collection of groups and decisions on many narrow
questions.

This again is an opinion that is simply flawed by simple facts.

Speer asked Heisenberg in June 1942 if it were possible to produce a
bomb that could effect the outcome of the war (ie before it was over)
and he said no, the period being 6 months and 2 years. In this
Heisenberg was correct as not even the USA achieved this within 2
years.

I will make an observation about the intent of many such arguments,
They were simply to totally discredit both professionally and morally
the German scientists due to the immediate post war animous. In doing
this you follow the traditons of the early historical writers on the
German program; Goudsmit, and latter Bernstein and Rose who all had an
axe to grind. Goudsmit because his Jewish parents persished and
because he personally blamed Heisenberg for not doing enough
personally to intervene and save them and Rose and Bernstein who are
motivated by similar animous who prented a haughty impartiallity that
I find easy the see through.

By the middle of 1942 the disappointing production of heavy water had
already set the German reactor program way back.

It was December 1942 that the Fermi/Szilard Chigago Pile 1(CP-1) went
critical. It required neary 1000 tons of graphite and a nearly
hundred tons of uranium.

A heavy water reactor needs 3-6 tons of heavy water and a 2-3 tons of
uranium. If natural uramium is to be used it is much better.

Post by careysub

Post by e***@yahoo.com.au
Hence when it came to the decision to produce heavy water (they knew
they needed about 5-6 tons and in fact needed only 3-4) it was decided
to rely on "Free" Norweigen heavy water derived from a byproduct of
electrolysis since this did not distract German industry from
producing the weapons Germany needed to prevail and survive in the
next 6-12 months.

"It was decided..."? By whom? What entity made this decision and when?
Where can a citation to it be found?

Erich Schumann was the physicist, in charge of such matters at the
HWA, who made the decision to go with Heavy Water and rely on
Norweigen production. He was incidently related to the musician. He
was the one that said to Diebner "Stop carrying on with all this
atomic crap all the time". He was actually competent.

Bothe made measurements of graphite as a moderator (graphite, berylium
and heavy water were calculated by atomic theory to be good
moderators).

Bothe measurements were degraded severely by residual impurities
(probably) boron in the graphite. The physicists Hanle (and Joos)
were able to prove that the source of the disappointing results was
contaminates however Heisenberg was never informed by anyone (eg
Diebner) and Schumann decided that heavy water was the way to go.
Afterall it allowed free production of heavy water from Norway and the
reactors were small enough to put into u-boats. Later Heisenberg
blamed Bothe for a while though Bothe denied it.

Post by careysub

Post by e***@yahoo.com.au
The production rate of Norweigne heavy water of
100kg/month was to have been increased to 300kg/ month by installing
electrolysis cells in 2-3 other Nowweigne dams.

Time frame here - this is mid 1942 when Norsk-Hydro production as hit
a peak performance of 125 kg/month. The expansion up to perhaps 400 kg/
month by applying the Harteck-Suess catalytic exchange process to the
cascade was being discussed in July based on some preliminary
experiments.If this took a year to implement (not unreasonable since
this new technology had to be made ready for a production system),

Expansion of electrolysis plant across other dams could also trebble
production along with providing vital amounts of ammonia for
fertilizer and explosives. Hartek-Suess was not the ony way being
persued. This expansion was stopped when repeated bombing and
sabotage attempts indicated the vulnerabillity of these plants AND
THREATENED THEIR PRIME UTILLITY AS SOURCES OF AMMONIA.

The sabotage attempts proved that heavy water was the target and that
aerial bombardments made these vital amonia plants to tempting a
target so heavy water production was stopped to prevent Vermonk being
a target, the allies stopped becasue they were killing the very same
Norweigens who had helped sabotage the plant. The Germans because the
ammonia was critical to them.

Low pressure low temp fractional distilation was economically possible
within Germany proper. Electrolysis was not the only option.

Post by careysub
then this bounty of D2O would start to flow in July 1943 - allowing
completion of a heavy water reactor in late 1943: a year after Fermi
Dec. 1942), instead of the year before (~ late 1941) if a bomb was to
be a possibility.
In late 1941 Norsk-Hydro had deliverd only 850 kg, not the 5 tonnes
needed for a critical system.

It should have delivered 1200 maybe 1500 in 1941 bar sobotage of the
cells (fish oil added as sabotage by the plant manager) and in 1942 a
good 1500 at least. That's a cumulative total of around 2700kg. The
introduction of additional plant at other nearby dams would have
produced potential 300kg/month (additional) which is about 3600-4800
year without new processes. Certainly 300+ kg month was the minimun
that was neccesary.

So sufficient heavy water should have been available by mid 1943 with
plenty of material prior to that to confirm theoretical lattice/
moderator spacings in sub critical levels.

In fact latter german calculations, which were correct showed that
slightly over 3 tons was adaquete rather than 5-6 due to the use of
graphite shielding around the reactor vessel which even though of not
the highest purity still reflected moderated neutrons back into the
core. Indeed quantities of 1 ton were adaquet in the case of a
spherical reactor vessel, lattice fuel layout and with graphite
sorounds, in which the graphite sorounds contained some natural
uranium oxide to amplify the reflected neutrons (this was the German
plan given the heavy water shortage)

Electrolytic production of heavy water works by using the residual
heavy water left in the cells as it reacts slower than normal water
due to the greater mass than standard water molecules. Typically 18
cells in series are used rather than 1 or two huge cells.

The Germans had boosted heavy water production at Vermonk by
optimising the 1st stage electrolysis for production of heavy water
(sacrificing modest efficiency in hydrogen production) and by
installing burners in up stream cells to recover the tailings of the
cells, whuch wass more concentrated, for use in downstream cells.
They also developed a catalystic ion exhange process to further
improve efficiency.

The catalytic ion process you mention was limited by lack of platinum
(nickel was substituted) and the fact that below concentrations of 1%
it was not all that helpfull.

Low pressure distillation was an option immediatly available to the
Germans within the security of Germany proper and had such a plant
been built it would have been of modest cost to build and run. It
would have been a highly visible target due to the height of the
distillation columns but presumably some reasonable attempt to
disguise as smoke stacks etc in existing plant could be made.

The reality is that German decisions of persue reactors first and to
use heavy water must be viewed in terms of the context.
1 Decisions were taken before war with Soviet Union and later the USA
when war must be fought hard an up front.
2 Decisions were taken in order to liberate German industry (by using
Norweigne industry) from the burden of capitalising plant in Germany
so that it was available for the immediate needs of defeating France,
Britain and USSR ie producing tanks, fighters, guns, u-boats, troops,
truucks, embunkerments, coal to oil plant.
3 By 1943 very heavy heavy water production techniques had been
developed namely the Geibe duel H2S exchange process could be built
without huge distiallation towers.

Post by careysub
Also note that the predicted production rates might never have
materialized. When the plant was sabotaged in Feb. 1943 the Harteck-
Suess modification had not been started, and the Vemork Plant
production rate had actually fallen from its mid 1942 peak. The
technology was a bit finicky.

Hartek-Suess was a dead end in Norway. The Norweigen plants were
insecure, which sabotage had started well before then and expanded
installations were being built but abandoned due to the security
issues.

Post by careysub

Post by e***@yahoo.com.au
Thus within 1 year or
so enough heavy water would be available. Sabotage of the
electrolysis cells and heavy water storage tanks completely delayed
the program while destruction of the product in transport destroyed
any hope of getting the full 4-5 tons.
It would have been possible to start build heavy water plants in
Germany almost immediatly using 'low temperature, low pressure
fractional distillation' that could produce about 8-10 tons year on
top of the Nowrweigne supplies: Basically waste heat from
petrochemical, iron & steal, power stations is ued to warm water to
about 54 degree C in a low pressure environment to split of the heavy
water only small amounts of electricity for opperation of the vaccum
pumps is required. It is not particulary expensive but it does cost
more than 'free norweigen water' and it does not require the building
of 100m tall distillation columns that might be bombed. However this
modest expense was not pursued despite the urgings of several
physicists. It was instead decided to develop even more efficient
heavy water production methods instead of the intermediate fractional
distillation method.

A nice account (technically), thanks.
And here we see the crucial decision that extinguished any possibility
of wartime success German program. The one resource that was
critically lacking was time. Any decision to delay an essential
preliminary step in developing atomic energy endangered any chance of
a bomb resulting, any large delay was automatically fatal and this one
was intentional.

The mode of thinking was that it was not critical because a war would
not last that long.

Of course it was wrong in the sense that a concerted effort to produce
heavy water by alternative means (eg fractional distilation) to
Norweigen production was available and 5 tons should have lead to a
reactor in late 1942 or mid 1943. Even if the Norweigen plans had of
succeded without the Hartek-Suess catalhstic ion exchange process or
the additonal plant, ie just 1.5 tons/year we get a reactor in mid
1944. Witz, who was with Heisenber says that by 1944 there was
enough. With improved or expanded electrolysis we get one on mid 1943
ie 6 tons available.

It should be noted that in summer of 1942, at the time Heisenbergs
L.IV experiment (run by Klara Doepel) showed that the Leipzig sphere
if scaled to 10 tons of two concentric uranium shells and 5 tons of
heavy water would sustain a reaction. This sub critical experiment
showed 13% neutron multipication. So why was Heisenber telling Speer
that things were so difficult?

Such a research proof of concept reactor would never to to produce
usuable power or to breed plutonium however it would provide the
credibillity for a greatly expanded nuclear program and Heisenbergs
prevarications would be irrelevant.

The resarchers were held up by trivialities such as refining Uranium
Oxide to Uranium metal and getting it fabricated due to simple lack of
priority, they were held up by bombings of their laboratory, and the
lack of facilities to repurify their heavy water, they had their
uranium enrichment centrifuges and sluices destroyed in bombings and
they had to move their laboratories to safe locations, they had to

There was no German atomic bomb program, there was a reactor program.
there was a reasonable idea of how to build a bomb but the decision
had been made to build a reactor first and then to e proced to detail
analysis and design of bomb from this point on. So in a sense there
was a boomb program.

Post by careysub
Note the mode of thought this reveals - a preference for low cost, low
risk approaches and the lack of any organized drive for expeditious
results.

These decisions were predicated on the idea of limiting resource
expenditure to a research and development level as its
industrialisation would cost the wartime economy too much. The
Manhatten program was simply too expensive for Germany.

Germany was not planning to be fighting a war in August 1945, because
the assumption was that it would have lost by then or been victorious.

Post by careysub
We have five examples of independent wartime atomic research efforts -
Britain and U.S. (up until late 1941), France (to May 1940), Germany
and Japan (the USSR program is too little, too late for many
reasons).
This is a unique historical experiment - one in which all the players
start at the same time with exactly the same knowledge - but then
initially proceed on their own.
The dominate pattern - shared by the U.S., Germany and Japan - is a
collection of independent research efforts looking at aspects of the
problem of atomic energy but not effectively directed toward quick
results. In Britain the unique breakthrough analysis by F&P initiated
an intense focused program of research on the entire problem of making
an atomic bomb. In France enlightened self-interest on the part of a
world-wise scientific team partnered with the well-funded world
leading producer of uranium, created a drive for early success in
creating that essential enabling step of a controlled chain reaction.

Frances efforts were theoretical.

Post by careysub
I conclude that getting an effective program initiated was
intrinsically difficult and required at a minimum a powerful
organizational focus on quick results. Even an early Presidential
directive failed to elicit effective action in the U.S., institutional
inertia being too strong; no driving leader or sponsor emerged in
Germany, and the Japanese effort was split then between the Army and
Navy, and left to languish by both.

Speer offered 500 million Reichsmarks. He asked and offered it to the
wrong man.

Post by careysub
France never got into the bomb business - but continuing on their path
with their early vigor was driving them straight in that direction,
and they would have found themselves quite naturally but
unintentionally at the brink of bomb making - with a stockpile of
weapon material just waiting to be separated.
Germany could have followed that same path, but lacked anyone with
money saying "do what it takes, spend what you need, but get it done
as soon as you can" - in fact it held many of the opposite.
In Jan. 1940 Harteck wanted to proceed with a German production plant
immediately, but Heisenberg was opposed - he insisted on waiting until
the results of preliminary experiments were obtained. The Army
Ordnance gave the matter a low priority and did nothing, but was
pleased to seize Norwegian resources for nothing. Unless the leading
lights (e.g. Heisenberg) pushed the Army to build large plants
immediately there was nothing going to be built.

Post by e***@yahoo.com.au
More sophisticated heavy water production
methods were succesfully developed. (Karl Hermann-Geibe developed the
duel temperature Hydrogen-suplide process in 1943 at IG Farben Leuna,
it is now used to feed Canada CANDU reactors) by then it was too late
to industrialise with this very efficient program.
The Germans did know how to build a reactor by 1944 and proabably much
earlier, had they not been hampered by inadaquet supplies of heavy
warter, bombings of their labouratories (including destruction of no
less than TWO ultracentrifuges, repeated relocations they would have
run a reactor well before close of war.
If this 'proof' occured then a bomb program would certainly be highly
prioritised and any 'nay sayers' side lined.

The plan to get a reactor in late 1943, instead of pushing to build
one as soon as possible, meant that this "high priority" could only
arrive too late to have any useful result.

Possibly, a proof reactor in late 1942, possible with simple means
gives them 2 years to develop a bomb that could effect the outcome of
the war.

One could anticipate the cyclotrons von Ardenne proposed being built
and the uranium centrifuges and sluices work of Hartek being supported
properly. These while technically more difficult are also vastly more
efficient and if the could be gotten to work reliably might just beat
the US gaseous diffusion program.

[Carey]

Post by e***@yahoo.com.au

Post by careysub
...
This is a historical fantasy - no wise "German weapons planning"
entity of this sort existed, much less one that tenderly managed the
conscience of one the nation's scientists.

There us no basis for that opinion apart from perjorative opinions
generated immediatly after WW2.

Please provide a reference supporting the contention that this elaborate
rationale of managing Heisenberg's conscience existed and affected a
central planning process for atomic energy.

Post by e***@yahoo.com.au
The Germans made mistakes, so did the allies.

...

Agreed.

Much of what I discussed I never characterized as a mistake BTW, just
that this was the one plausible route that might have led to a real shot
at an atomic bomb during the war. This route actually depended on
serendipity - that any early focus on power reactors would the enabler
of an atomic bomb. Not seeing this in advance was not a mistake.

I think the Germans had sufficient reason and ample resources to move
forward immediately with a heavy water reactor program early enough to
have done some good in early 1940, but choosing not too is not exactly
the same as a mistake.

Post by e***@yahoo.com.au
So I see no basis for that claim, in fact the HWA (Heers Waffen Ampt)
or Army Ordinance Office who were in charge of such things as
procuements, design and R+D did produce a report which calculated a
critical mass for an atomic bomb between 8-100kg, slightly better than
the 2-100kg report of the MAUD committee since the actuall critical
mass of a U235 weapons with a simple U238 temper was around 60kg.

This report does not give any information about where to estimate came
from, and it is useful to realize that wild guesses in this range had
been bandied about since the discovery of fission.

Post by e***@yahoo.com.au

Post by careysub

Post by e***@yahoo.com.au
Since it was not possible to produce an atmic bomb in 2 years the best
thing to do was to run a research program to produce an atomic reactor
for power and maybe u-boat propulsion and then use this as a stepping
stone to the bomb.

This is rationale formulated long after the war being grafted on to
the haphazard collection of groups and decisions on many narrow
questions.

This again is an opinion that is simply flawed by simple facts.

Not flawed in the slightest.

Army Ordnance certainly had a statutory role in coordinating this
activity, and control over purse strings, and had some interest in the
subject - but the sort of centrally directed close coordination pushing
forward atomic energy development that appeared in the Britain with the
MAUD Committee and the U.S. with S-1 in Dec. 1941 never existed in
Germany. One only needs to consult any of the standard histories:
Irving's "Virus House", Bernsteins "Hitler's Uranium Club", Mark
Walker's books, etc. for this contrast to be striking.

Do you realize that the Army Ordinance Office actually severed its
support for uranium research during the war? So much for its wise
central director of atomic energy.

Post by e***@yahoo.com.au
Speer asked Heisenberg in June 1942 if it were possible to produce a
bomb that could effect the outcome of the war (ie before it was over)
and he said no, the period being 6 months and 2 years. In this
Heisenberg was correct as not even the USA achieved this within 2
years.

From my post of 1 November on this thread:

"at the point in real history where Germany
might have made the same sort of decision as Roosevelt in May 1942, it
was already too late for them to have a successful program. And I
think Heisenberg should be credited for making the call that this was
so, and essentially advising against the effort"

So we agree completely here.

Post by e***@yahoo.com.au
I will make an observation about the intent of many such arguments,
They were simply to totally discredit both professionally and morally
the German scientists due to the immediate post war animous.

And so your ad hominem attack is baseless. Your are imagining positions
that I have never taken.

Post by e***@yahoo.com.au
In doing
this you follow the traditons of the early historical writers on the
German program; Goudsmit, and latter Bernstein and Rose who all had an
axe to grind.

....

Walker too?

I agree Goudsmit provides a biased assessment - ascribing failure (and
offering many pejorative remarks on that basis) to a bomb project that
never existed.

You are totally off base with Bernstein; I have no opinion about Rose at
the moment.

The haphazard state of German atomic development is obvious in Irving
also, and no one could claim that he was biased against the Germans.

Post by e***@yahoo.com.au
By the middle of 1942 the disappointing production of heavy water had
already set the German reactor program way back.

At this point the program had been running exactly as planned without
outside interference. Why was the heavy water production
"disappointing"? They had insufficient heavy water for a reactor in 1942
because they planned not to have it, relying only on Vemork's current
operations.

This is precisely the point (in greatly shortened form) that I have been
making.

Post by e***@yahoo.com.au
It was December 1942 that the Fermi/Szilard Chigago Pile 1(CP-1) went
critical. It required neary 1000 tons of graphite and a nearly
hundred tons of uranium.

And Fermi and company had instituted plans to produce the necessary
material at the beginning of the year, and so succeeded on schedule.

Germany failed to come up with the mere 5 tons (or even 2) of heavy
water because their plan did not include it.

Note also, the 1000 tons of graphite were just the lead deliveries on
tens of thousands of tons to build production reactors. Germany needed
to be planning on producing tens of tons of heavy water for follow-on
reactors after the first demonstration.

Post by e***@yahoo.com.au
A heavy water reactor needs 3-6 tons of heavy water and a 2-3 tons of
uranium. If natural uramium is to be used it is much better.

Post by careysub

Post by e***@yahoo.com.au
Hence when it came to the decision to produce heavy water (they knew
they needed about 5-6 tons and in fact needed only 3-4) it was decided
to rely on "Free" Norweigen heavy water derived from a byproduct of
electrolysis since this did not distract German industry from
producing the weapons Germany needed to prevail and survive in the
next 6-12 months.

"It was decided..."? By whom? What entity made this decision and when?
Where can a citation to it be found?

Erich Schumann was the physicist, in charge of such matters at the
HWA, who made the decision to go with Heavy Water and rely on
Norweigen production.
He was incidently related to the musician. He
was the one that said to Diebner "Stop carrying on with all this
atomic crap all the time". He was actually competent.

Thanks, I wanted some specificity as to whom you were referring.

Notice that he was funding at the same time the rocket research, which
had no chance of "producing the weapons Germany needed to prevail and
survive in the next 6-12 months". The reason that he did so was the
bravado of the rocket research team leaders who told them they would
"succeed" but gave no plan for doing so in the specified amount of time.

He did not fund German heavy water production largely because Heisenberg
refused to request it (as I noted in my previous posting).

So the funding was largely along the lines of the most aggressive
claimant, rather than being strictly rational.

(BTW: How he knew the correct amounts needed before the sub-critical
experiments had established them seems a bit of a surprise - any
documentation supporting this particular aspect of your claim?)

....

Post by e***@yahoo.com.au
So sufficient heavy water should have been available by mid 1943 with
plenty of material prior to that to confirm theoretical lattice/
moderator spacings in sub critical levels.

Right, their planning was for a reactor about two years too late to be
useful during the war.

The planning failures that led them to trust entirely to an occupied
nation to supply a critical material for free (the Germans actually
promised to pay the Norwegians for their heavy water operating expenses
but never did, they refused even to pay plant repair costs after the
bombing) is another planning problem entirely. This led their (at best)
"too little too late plan" to fail entirely.

....

Post by e***@yahoo.com.au
Indeed quantities of 1 ton were adaquet in the case of a
spherical reactor vessel, lattice fuel layout and with graphite
sorounds, in which the graphite sorounds contained some natural
uranium oxide to amplify the reflected neutrons (this was the German
plan given the heavy water shortage)

And yet they failed even at that. They had that much heavy water for
nearly 3 years by the end of the war!

The projects were weakly organized and not especially vigorous
throughout the war.

....

Post by e***@yahoo.com.au
Low pressure distillation was an option immediatly available to the
Germans within the security of Germany proper and had such a plant
been built it would have been of modest cost to build and run. It
would have been a highly visible target due to the height of the
distillation columns but presumably some reasonable attempt to
disguise as smoke stacks etc in existing plant could be made.

Right, it would have been cheap and easy to set up, and yet they didn't.

The "tall column" argument carries little weight in January 1940 since
effective industrial bombing did not appear for ~3 years.
....

Post by e***@yahoo.com.au

Post by careysub
And here we see the crucial decision that extinguished any possibility
of wartime success German program. The one resource that was
critically lacking was time. Any decision to delay an essential
preliminary step in developing atomic energy endangered any chance of
a bomb resulting, any large delay was automatically fatal and this one
was intentional.

The mode of thinking was that it was not critical because a war would
not last that long.
Of course it was wrong in the sense that a concerted effort to produce
heavy water by alternative means (eg fractional distilation) to
Norweigen production was available and 5 tons should have lead to a
reactor in late 1942 or mid 1943.

An energetic effort at the beginning of 1940, when Harteck wanted to
start one, would have yielded a reactor in 1941. It does not take more
than two years to build and operate a heavy water plant (witness the
U.S. wartime production of heavy water).

Post by e***@yahoo.com.au
Even if the Norweigen plans had of
succeded without the Hartek-Suess catalhstic ion exchange process or
the additonal plant, ie just 1.5 tons/year we get a reactor in mid
1944. Witz, who was with Heisenber says that by 1944 there was
enough. With improved or expanded electrolysis we get one on mid 1943
ie 6 tons available.
It should be noted that in summer of 1942, at the time Heisenbergs
L.IV experiment (run by Klara Doepel) showed that the Leipzig sphere
if scaled to 10 tons of two concentric uranium shells and 5 tons of
heavy water would sustain a reaction. This sub critical experiment
showed 13% neutron multipication. So why was Heisenber telling Speer
that things were so difficult?
Such a research proof of concept reactor would never to to produce
usuable power or to breed plutonium however it would provide the
credibillity for a greatly expanded nuclear program and Heisenbergs
prevarications would be irrelevant.
The resarchers were held up by trivialities such as refining Uranium
Oxide to Uranium metal and getting it fabricated due to simple lack of
priority, they were held up by bombings of their laboratory, and the
lack of facilities to repurify their heavy water, they had their
uranium enrichment centrifuges and sluices destroyed in bombings and
they had to move their laboratories to safe locations, they had to
There was no German atomic bomb program, there was a reactor program.

Right. One run with low priority from the beginning, that might have
yielded useful results if it had been given a push in 1940.

Post by e***@yahoo.com.au
there was a reasonable idea of how to build a bomb but the decision
had been made to build a reactor first and then to e proced to detail
analysis and design of bomb from this point on. So in a sense there
was a boomb program.

Post by careysub
Note the mode of thought this reveals - a preference for low cost, low
risk approaches and the lack of any organized drive for expeditious
results.

These decisions were predicated on the idea of limiting resource
expenditure to a research and development level as its
industrialisation would cost the wartime economy too much. The
Manhatten program was simply too expensive for Germany.

Although it outspent it making V-2s?

....

Post by e***@yahoo.com.au
Frances efforts were theoretical.

They were the world leaders in critical experiments in the spring of 1940.
....

Post by e***@yahoo.com.au
Possibly, a proof reactor in late 1942, possible with simple means
gives them 2 years to develop a bomb that could effect the outcome of
the war.

As you have confirmed the plan was to get one in 1943 not 1942.

And even with one in late 1942, no chance. The MED got a one year head
start (the U.S. weapon research program S-1 began in Dec. 1941, and
became a full scale weapon production program in May 1942) and ran three
parallel production programs at top speed and not one of them gave a
bomb in time. A German decision to begin a weapon program in Dec. 1942,
say, is way too late.

[careysub]

On Nov 7, 11:07 am, ***@yahoo.com.au wrote:
...

Post by e***@yahoo.com.au
So I see no basis for that claim, in fact the HWA (Heers Waffen Ampt)
or Army Ordinance Office who were in charge of such things as
procuements, design and R+D did produce a report which calculated a
critical mass for an atomic bomb between 8-100kg, slightly better than
the 2-100kg report of the MAUD committee since the actuall critical
mass of a U235 weapons with a simple U238 temper was around 60kg.

...

Is the report you mention the one marked HWA (Kurt Diebner),
"Energiegewinnung aus Uran" (February, 1942)?

If so, it is the same one I mentioned in connection with awareness of
the explosive utility of plutonium.

The MAUD Committee report gave an estimate of the material required
for a bomb as 25 lb (~12 kg) of U-235, not 2-100 kg.

The Diebner/HWA report states:
"Da sich in jeder Substanz einige freie Neutronen befinden, würde es
zur Entzündung des Sprengstoffs genügen, eine hinreichende Menge
(vermutlich etwa 10 - 100 kg) räumlich zu vereinigen [...]."

[Translation: "Since there are a few free neutrons in every substance,
it would suffice for detonating the explosive to bring together a
sufficient amount (presumably around 10 to 100 kilograms) ..."]

This suggests that the numbers given for the material required for a
bomb are not well founded - basically a guess. Similarly guesses
circulated since the discovery of fission.

[e***@yahoo.com.au]

...> So I see no basis for that claim, in fact the HWA (Heers Waffen Ampt)

Post by e***@yahoo.com.au
or Army Ordinance Office who were in charge of such things as
procuements, design and R+D did produce a report which calculated a
critical mass for an atomic bomb between 8-100kg, slightly better than
the 2-100kg report of the MAUD committee since the actuall critical
mass of a U235 weapons with a simple U238 temper was around 60kg.

...
Is the report you mention the one marked HWA (Kurt Diebner),
"Energiegewinnung aus Uran" (February, 1942)?
If so, it is the same one I mentioned in connection with awareness of
the explosive utility of plutonium.
The MAUD Committee report gave an estimate of the material required
for a bomb as 25 lb (~12 kg) of U-235, not 2-100 kg.

All competent researchers produce an error budget, they must do so to
be taken seriously.

12kg, if it is indeed true (Wiki gives 18lbs without temper and 9lbs
with temper) is simply wrong. Littleboy was closer to 56kg of the
material.

There were incidently TWO MAUD reports.

"Da sich in jeder Substanz einige freie Neutronen befinden, würde es
zur Entzündung des Sprengstoffs genügen, eine hinreichende Menge
(vermutlich etwa 10 - 100 kg) räumlich zu vereinigen [...]."
[Translation: "Since there are a few free neutrons in every substance,
it would suffice for detonating the explosive to bring together a
sufficient amount (presumably around 10 to 100 kilograms) ..."]
This suggests that the numbers given for the material required for a
bomb are not well founded - basically a guess. Similarly guesses
circulated since the discovery of fission.

Nope, it suggests that the author gave a range of estimates to
encompass a variety of conditions such as the type and performance of
the temper (sorounding material which might be U238, tungsten carbide,
graphite) and the speed of assembly of the subcritical masses.


Diebner (if he did write it) knew how to calculate critical and
almost certainly supercritical masses (the claim of the Germans nobe
being aware of delayed and prompt neurtrons by Goudsmit being
falacious and malevolent), he had lead the evolution of lattice
reactors an concluded several successfull subcritical neutron
multiplication piles (using wax, not heavy water). These would easily
have been critical had sufficient heavy water been available.


MAUD got it wrong, they consistantly and grossly underestimated the
amount of material (U235) by a factor of 5:10 with frisch and Peirls
out by a factor of 100. Both sources initially conceived of the bomb
being so heavy that delivery would need to be by ship.
MAUD though a bomb could be ready by 1943!

The Germans were closer to the mark HOWEVER they were not very
interested in immediatly developing a precise figure. They wanted to
got to nuclear power first and concurrently were working on economic
enrichment for purposes of a reactor with an explosive in the
background.

MAUD by virtue of grossly underistimating the actual U235 and the
amount of time and effort, thereby encouraged the program. It did
advocating enrichment by the extremely inefficient and expensive
gaseous diffusion method which the Germans only briefly considered and
it did note how expensive this might be.

The HWA report (10-100kg) and Heisenbergs early estimate of the
amount of material being the size of a pineapple or baseball (about
1-1.5 which would be 30Kg) was quite accurate.

Only in farmhall, where he worked out critical mass,litteraly standing
on his feet, claiming he had never done the calculation properly did
he err for a short time saying it was about 500kg without temper and
250kg or so with. (about 30cm to 50cm diameter) but he quickly
corrected his mistake and got the correct mass.

[WaltBJ]

The German atomic bomb: A good look at Oak Ridge (U235) and at the
Hanford Works (Pu239) will give an idea of the size of the Manhattan
Project. Now, where could either site be located in a German
controlled and secure area and be free from photo recce and subsequent
bombing raids? Simple research will give numbers of people involved,
too. Do not overlook the 'worker bees' involved, either. I submit
Germany simply could not have afforded the prodigious effort required
to produce the fissionable materials for either type of weapon. Forex,
it took the USSR about four years of maximum effort (Beria, under
Stalin's thumb; no nonsense about OSHA type safety, either!) to
produce Joe One.
Walt BJ

[e***@yahoo.com.au]

Post by j***@cix.compulink.co.uk

Post by Carey
To hope to change the course of the war Germany would have had to
beat the Manhattan Project by a full year.

Quite so. Doing that isn't really within the realms of credibility. It
needs the German bomb project to have got started immediately on the
discovery of fission, receive vast resources, go down no blind alleys
more than very briefly, and be extremely lucky.
I was thinking more about "could those people have done it, under ideal
circumstances?", which isn't the same thing as getting the chance to do
it.

Yes, I think so.

Resources in Germany were tight but there was ultimatly enough
available. I believe a running reactor would have secured the
confidence required to build a bomb.

I believe a reactor might have been possible as early as 1941 or late
1942.

A reactor was "easy" while a bomb was difficult due to the need to
solve the extremely difficult uranium enrichment problem or to have
big supplies of Plutonium derived from a large number of reactors.

Seeing that a reacor was a trivial stepping stone to a possible bomb
both from a confidence point of view and that it was a very simple
cheap effort all stops should have been pulled out even if there was
only a 1/1o chance.

First lets note the complexities of the intitiation of the "first
uranium club" a bunch of pre war talented physicists who privately
organised to develope nuclear power. When the military were gotten
involved Erich Schumann was placed in charge of what was known as the
"second uranium club" which ended up sidelining or excluding half the
first uranium club, including all the members such as Joos and Hanle
who wanted to go with a graphite reactor. Half these guys ended up in
either subordinate roles or put onto military projects. Hanle in
particular proved that graphite was a suitable moderator yet his
mesaage and work wasn't communicated.

Going with a Graphite reactor get rid of the road blocks of heavy
water supply. It's possible to get a reactor going within about 6
months, they time it takes to purify graphite and make it into bricks.

So if Hanle is not sidelined, if he is 'respected' and if the
relatively trivial amounts are released a graphite reactor or at least
a proof of concept subcritical reactor can be built quite early.

Physicists like Hartek might even have succeded in prroving fission or
at least neutron multiplciation in 1939 if he had of been given the
dry ice(for moderator) and uranium he needed. These were trivial,
inexpensive amounts yet he managed to obtain only of the fraction of
the uranium or dry ice he needed for budget reasons.

Then there is the issue of Heavy Water. The Germans relied on
Norweigen heavy water because it was a free byproduct of electrolysis.

Had they built a heavy water plant in Germany using the low temperatur
low pressure waste heat based fractional distilation method they would
have secured the plentifull supplies they needed to get an early
success. Possibly if they had not have captured norway?

Only economic descision prevented the heavy water plant.

The duel temperature hydrogen sulphite process they had developed by
1943 at Leuna was very efficient but it was too late, by then the
bombing campaign delayed prevented industrialisation attempts. A
domestic German heavy water distilation plant might have opperated
between mid 41 to mid 42 and produced 6-12 tons of heavy water by then
and possibly worked untill 1943 by which time it would be vulnerable
to bombing. (the Canadian plant was an 12 ton/year plant). This
would have not only suplemented but possibly have suplanted the
unreliable Norweigen supplies.

If they had of initiated a heavy watrer plant in mid 1940 it might
have been in opperation mid 1941 and both accelerated supplies of
heavy water to accelerated the subcritical experiments but to make
enough heavy water for a mid 1942 reactor based around 5-6 tons of
indigenous heavy water.

Post by j***@cix.compulink.co.uk
From then on there would be a well funded and respected nuclear

program that would quickly lead to a reactor as well as a bomb
program.

As it was there first notable experimental success was early/mid 1942
when the Leipzig L.IV sphere proved that fission was possible and that
mere scaling up of the sphere would produce sustainable fission.
Priirr to that the same sphere with uranium oxide also provided
encouraging results while there were shorty thereafter experiments
based on uranium oxide in wax that were very encouraging.
(Note the use of a crabon based wax moderator)

The L.IV sphere was merely two concentric uranium metal shells with
heavy water in between. A radium polonium neutron source was placed
in the middle. Some 13% more neutrons exited the sphere than exited
the netron source. This confirmed fission was possible and proved
that scaling up the sphere to 10 tons would produce self sustaining
fission.

Yet at this point there is very little action. They waited for more
heavy water from processses that were in R+D states.

[Bill Shatzer]

Post by w***@hotmail.com
Aside and apart from the use of a
long-range bomber, presumably he could have used a
nuclear warhead on the V-2.

Not bloody likely - the warhead on a V-2 was less than 1,000 kilograms
while the Hiroshima bomb was 4,000 Kg and the Nagasaki bomb over 5,000 Kg.

It wasn't until the 1950s that nuclear weapons in the 1,000 Kg. range
were developed.

[Chris]

Post by w***@hotmail.com
Why would it have been necessary for the Germans to
need the industrial resources of the U.S. to develop the
A-bomb, if they had been committed as early as 1938 to
do nuclear research on their own?

Because historically it was only through a massive application of
American resources that the first nuclear weapons were built. Other
countries were able to build deliverable weapons approximately six
years after starting a major program with the advantages gained from
the Manhattan Project (simply knowing which avenues were worth
pursuing and which weren't, and the helpful Dr. Fuchs assistance on
implosion, were invaluable for later programs). So, let's say that
magically the Germans are as effective as post-war, most assuredly not
being bombed Britain, and Heisenberg knows which blind alleys to avoid
because a talking pony tells him what to do. It still took the British
six years from major program begin (1947) to *second* atomic test
(1953- my rule of thumb for when you become a nuclear power is the
second explosion, not the first, hence my choice of 1951 for the USSR,
rather than 1949). Meaning that even in this incredibly favorable case
(the British had a huge motivation and knew that this stuff actually
worked- which the Germans would not, just as another example) the bomb
would have been ready only after D-Day.

Post by w***@hotmail.com
Germany had the
physicists and scientists (as aforementioned, the Germans
had discovered uranium fission in 1938),

Of the five people who worked together on fission (Hahn, Strassman,
Meitner, Frisch and Traube), one had to flee to Sweden and become a
Swedish citizen, another was arrested and murdered because he was
Jewish, and a third fled to Britain and then the US. Just Hahn and
Strassman were able to stay in Germany during the war. So 20% of the
team who theorized and then discovered evidence of uranium fission
ended up working at Los Alamos, and only 40% were even in a position
to help Germany during the war. This is part of a claim at how
effective German physicists could have been during WW2?

Leaving the entire persecution of Jews aside, let's consider how
developed the major countries physics departments were. As a quick and
dirty measure, let's count up Nobel Prize in physics winners from
1920-1940, and see what 'country' they represented. This is crude for
many reasons: because scientists, even in this period, were a very
mobile, peripatetic lot, and so assigning a single country to someone
like Szilard is quite difficult (Austria, Hungary, Germany, Britain or
the US?). Also, these men often did their important work before the
period in question, so this is somewhat backwards looking, but it's a
good quick and dirty guide to how much effort different countries were
putting into physics research.

When two men share a prize, I count it as 2 half prizes in a separate
count from the solo winners

Neutrals:
Switzerland: 1 (Guillaume)
Sweden: 1 (Siegbahn)

Smaller Countries:
Denmark: 1 (Bohr)


Axis Nations:
Italy: 1 (Fermi)
Germany: 2 + 2/2 (Einstein, Franck+Hertz, Heisenberg)
Austria: 2/2 (Schroedinger, Hess)

Allied Nations:
France: 2 (Perrin, de Broglie)
US: 3 + 2/2 (Millikan, Compton, Anderson, Davisson, Lawrence)
UK: 3 + 2/2 (Wilson, Richardson, Dirac, Chadwick, Thomson)
India: 1 (Raman)

So we can see that even without the presence of all those refugees
(e.g. Schroedinger, Bohr, Fermi, Einstein) the Allies combined had an
awful lot of physics experience and resources they were able to mass
and concentrate- by this measure considerably more than Germany. And
in spite of all of that, the Manhattan Project still took a massive
amount of resources to get a bomb before the end of the war. Sure,
Germany can start a bit earlier, but the Top Policy Committee in the
US decided to make building a bomb a major policy goal before the US
even entered the war, and the Bomb was not ready in time for use
against Germany.

Post by w***@hotmail.com
the technical resources

Britain spent two years after the MAUD report was issued trying to
figure out if they had the technical resources necessary to build a
bomb on their own. The requirements outlined the MAUD report were
staggering to the industrial leaders of Britain who would have to pay
for it, and MAUD was very optimistic relative to the actual costs of
things as discovered during the Manhattan Project. So I am very
doubtful that Germany could have afforded to build a bomb either.

Post by w***@hotmail.com
Thus, by 1942, Germany had dropped the
idea of developing a nuclear weapon and, instead, spent
more than 2 billion marks on the A-4 / V-2 rocket, as an
example of expenditures

2 billion marks ~ 800 million dollars. That would barely have paid for
building the K-25 plant (~650 million dollars) leave alone the rest of
the Manhattan Project. And K-25, historically, would not have- by
itself- had a bomb ready by VJ Day, leave alone in time for it to help
Germany. The US was operating at a completely different level than
anyone else, economically, and it shows.

Post by w***@hotmail.com
If the Germans had developed an A-bomb between 1938
and 1945, Hitler might have used the bomb on either
the Russians in the east, or other Allies in the west;

And, anytime after 1943, been met with an immediate, massive barrage
of persistent chemical agents on all major German cities. This would
have thoroughly trashed the German economy without any possibility of
recovery. It goes beyond the famous problem of the German army's
reliance on horses for logistical support (horses don't handle gas
well). Cleaning and decontaminating industrial machinery is a very,
very difficult process: the USN plan for what to do if ships got hit
with persistent chemical agents was to scuttle the ship after
completing the current battle and then getting the crew off.
Otherwise, the lubricants mix with the agent, and the agent can worm
its way into all sorts of really nasty spots and sicken and kill
months later. A major cloud of mustard gas over the Ruhr would be very
bad for Germany's economy, and would be the inevitable outcome of a
German atomic bomb. So does breaking the balance of terror help the
Germans? They can't use it to effectively attack America (see below)
except maybe by submarine, and it will inevitably devastate their own
production. So where's the upside?

Post by w***@hotmail.com
point is, he would not have needed a long-range bomber
such as the B-36.

You were the one who mentioned "(the Luftwaffe had plans for a bomber
that could fly to the U.S. and back)" as if failing to develop the
bomber was a mistake that the Germans had made. So we are agreed that
Germany has no chance other than via submarine of getting a nuclear
weapon against the US?

German submarines tended to have lives that were nasty, brutish, and
short from 1943 on, and so would be a poor choice of delivery, leaving
aside the issue that shallow water detonation is not as effective at
causing destruction to a city as an airburst.

Post by w***@hotmail.com
Aside and apart from the use of a
long-range bomber, presumably he could have used a
nuclear warhead on the V-2.
From what I can tell, the US first tested a bomb that would have fit

onto the V-2 in 1953 during the Upshot-Knothole tests. So now you are
really asking for an enormous amount of development from these amazing
German engineers. The US conducted instrumented tests (so not counting
Fatman and Little Boy) of over 30 nuclear blasts before that series of
tests even started: that was the sort of experience necessary to push
the package design that small. How on earth do the Germans get this
capability?

Post by w***@hotmail.com
Because of a burning, seething anger that Hitler had
after Germany's defeat in WW1, the treatment Germany
received after the Treaty of Versailles in 1919, quest
for "Lebensraum", "international Jewry", and Bolshevism
to mention just a few.

But a Germany with US levels of resources was clearly not defeated in
World War One, treated badly in Versailles, etc.

Please read Adam Tooze's _Wages of Destruction_ to get a good picture
of how delicate the German economy was during the war. It was
generally running with thin margins and barely avoiding disaster.

Post by w***@hotmail.com
If you are referring to resources to develop a nuclear
weapon, consider the fact that the Germans built
approximately 6,000 V-2's, as well as V-1's and other
rockets at great cost.

Every other week, as I give a tour of the Smithsonian Air and Space
Museum in Washington DC (next time anyone on the group gets into town,
if you drop me an email I'd be happy to get together with you) I stand
a foot or so from a V-2 built in the slave labor camp Mittelwerk. And
one of the things that I mention in the tour is that the use of slave
labor created a terrible reliability problem that the Germans were
simply never able to solve: approximately 1/3 of the V-2's simply did
not work. (See _Rocket and the Reich_ by Neufeld.)

Now the Manhattan Project explored about half-a-dozen different routes
to building a bomb. All of them required very highly reliable
machinery. The cascades that made up a gaseous barrier diffusion
system was miles of tubing and connectors and advanced machinery and
needed to run continuously for weeks at a time in order to achieve
much throughput. If they were made by slave labor they would not be
very productive. Similarly, the equipment and machinery for plutonium
reprocessing needs to be reliable, or else your extraction rate is low
and your personnel turnover (due to death) is high. Calutron
development was not a likely choice in the first place (there was very
nearly a US monopoly on this type of research), and the US needed
something like half a billion 1944-dollars in pure silver to be
electromagnets for the devices anyway. I don't know anything about the
chances of Germany operating a thermal diffusion plant.

Post by w***@hotmail.com
When you ignore the advice of your generals and initiate
a two-front war, you suddenly find yourself in a

I am very suspicious of all claims by German generals, after that war,
that they counseled Hitler against invading the USSR. After the war
was over, when everyone else who was present was conveniently dead, it
seems as if only the Cassandra's survived.

Check out, for example, how in the run up to Munich apparently Beck
was the only general willing to come out against Hitler and argue
directly that Hitler was making a mistake. He asked other senior
officers, trying to get a lot of them to resign en masse as a protest.
All of the rest turned him down. In the end he even acceded to
Hitler's request that he go quietly- destroying the value of his
resignation as a protest. Given this, I find the idea that many
generals actually advised Hitler not to invade the USSR during the
period fall '40-summer '41 ludicrous. Everyone knew that a two front
war would be a problem, but Germany had no way to defeat Britain, and
most Germans felt that given that they had already defeated France
(which they had failed to do in WWI) the USSR would be fairly easy
(they had defeated Russia in WWI and it had only been weakened by 20
years of Communism), so invading the USSR seemed like the only
available option, to deprive the British of their last remaining ally,
and to enable the Germans to focus on building up the strategic air
force necessary to engage the US and UK.

Chris Manteuffel

[Bay Man]

Post by Andrew M. Carroll, Esquire
My candidate for the worst mistake of WWII was 1) Stalin did not
act on the (overwhelming) intelligence that Hitler's troops were about
to invade the Soviet Union.

The worst mistake was the German declaring war in the first place. A war
they could never win.

Post by Andrew M. Carroll, Esquire
The second choke point that I can think of has to do w/ the
Japanese. Specifically, the Japanese war plan was predicated on two
overarching conclusions - both of which were wrong.

The worst mistake by the Japanese was being cajoled into attacking the UK
and US. The Germans wanted the Japanese primarily to attack the UK to keep
them off their backs as they were faltering in the USSR. They could not
afford to fight two of them in Europe and especially an air war - which
came.

[Chris]

On Nov 10, 7:06 pm, "Bay Man"

Post by Bay Man
The worst mistake by the Japanese was being cajoled into attacking the UK
and US. The Germans wanted the Japanese primarily to attack the UK to keep
them off their backs as they were faltering in the USSR.

The Japanese made the decision for war with the UK and US essentially
on their own, driven by their goals in China- their desperate need for
the oil of the DEI to continue their futile war in China. The Japanese
Monographs are fairly clear that it was oil[1], starting in the summer
of '41, that spurred war planning and political decision making. The
Germans had applied pressure, but it was not during the time the key
decisions were made: it was either months before or exceptionally late
in the process. The two best documented examples of von Ribbentrop and
Ambassador Oshima discussing a Japanese invasion of South-East Asia
are from meetings on 13 February 1941 and 28 November 1941. The former
is several months before the Japanese started to consider war with the
US, UK, and Netherlands at once (and here v-R suggest not attacking
the US), the latter long after the decision to go to war was made.

And the Germans were also trying to apply pressure on Japan to enter
the war against the USSR- which they deftly avoided, so it is clear
that the Japanese was not afraid of disappointing their German ally.

For my evidence, consult :

13 Feb 1941 meeting notes by von Ribbentrop:
http://avalon.law.yale.edu/imt/1834-ps.asp

28 November 1941 Meeting notes by Oshima
http://www.ibiblio.org/pha/timeline/411129b.html

Japanese Monographs on the start of the war:
http://ibiblio.org/pha/monos/

[1]: Not just the embargo- British author H.P. Willmott's _Pearl
Harbor_ points out that the Japanese were running out of hard currency
to buy oil on the open market, and would only have been able to buy
oil on the open market until spring '42 or so, when they would have
been faced with the exact same summer '41 historical choice between
giving up the campaign in China or expanding the war to include the
Netherlands, the UK, and the US.

Chris Manteuffel

[Bay Man]

Post by Chris
On Nov 10, 7:06 pm, "Bay Man"

Post by Bay Man
The worst mistake by the Japanese was being
cajoled into attacking the UK and US. The
Germans wanted the Japanese primarily to
attack the UK to keep them off their backs as
they were faltering in the USSR.

The Japanese made the decision
for war with the UK and US essentially
on their own,

Japan would NEVER had attacked the UK and USA unilaterally if Germany did
not give commitments.

Tooze - Wages of destruction, UK paperback page 503/506 :

"The real nightmare of German strategy was the possibility that Japan might
come to terms with the United States, leaving Germany to fight Britain and
America alone. To forestall this possibility, Hitler had offered to declare
war on the United States in conjunction with Japan already in the spring of
1941."

"But the Japanese had refused to commit themselves and instead entered into
a last round of negotiations with the USA."

"It was not until October and the fall of the Konoe government that Berlin
could feel sure that the Japanese-USA talks were going nowhere."

"When in November 1941 Tokyo began to signal that Japan was about to commit
itself against the West, it was the cause of relief, bordering on euphoria
in Berlin. Finally Hitler and Ribbentrop had the chance to complete the
global strategic alliance they had been hoping for since 1938. And they did
not hesitate."

"Without prior knowledge of the Japanese timetable for a surprise attack on
Pearl Harbor, Hitler pledged himself to following Japan in a declaration of
war on the United States."

Note: "Hitler pledged himself to following Japan in a declaration of war on
the United States"

Japan was seriously considering the northern attack (the USSR) or the
southern attack. Both offered essential natural resources. The southern
attack was spread very thin covering a vast amount of territory and sea.

Germany after Czechoslovakia wanted a German/UK/French pact against the
USSR. The UK & France were not interested. Then Germany could not get a
German/Italian/Japanese alliance against the UK. Hitler had an eye on their
substantial navies, as the UK/French navies were formidable.

Without Germany declaring war on the USA the Japanese would not have moved
south. A few months before Pearl Harbour the Japanese refused Germany's
request to declare war on the UK. Hitler wanted the UK distracted as he
knew it would take longer to defeat the USSR.

The Hitler-Stalin pact forced the pro-German cabinet in Tokyo to resign and
power passed to the army, who were preoccupied with a small war with the
USSR in Manchuria from May-Sept 1939. Japan was not on good terms with
Germany in 1941.

The situation in Autumn 1941 was:

Priorities were:

Germany:
1. USSR
2. The UK
3. The USA

Japan:
1. The USA
2/3. The USSR
2/3. The UK

The situations was:

The Germans were pushing back the USSR and "hoped" to fully defeat them in
early 1942. Japan's view was the same, but were more certain of a German
victory as they were kept in the dark of the real situation in the USSR.

The Germans needed the UK distracted as they were building up massive
forces, especially an air fleet. Hitler did not want to engage the USSR and
the UK simultaneously by himself in a two fronted land war. Hitler knew the
war with the USSR would be longer and not end by Christmas 1941.

The Japanese would not attack the UK or USA. They were not equipped to
succeed by themselves.

Germany offering to declare war on the USA if Japan attacked the UK and USA
was tempting for Japan. The Japanese were banking on the Germans to defeat
the USSR soon. That was the key for Japan, getting the USSR from their
nothern front in China and releasing the Germans.

Japan may make some headway, buying time, by eliminating the US Pacific
Fleet and engage the UK in Malaya, until the USSR was defeated by Germany in
1942. When the USSR was defeated they would move into Siberia and hopefully
transfer many troops from China to the south. Then Germany can come to their
aid by turning on the UK via the Middle East, weakening the UK further, and
hopefully meet up in western India or Iran, and using U-Boats to attack the
UK & US military and merchant fleets. Japan viewed they were would be
supreme in the western Pacific in naval power.

Germany did not defeat the USSR and left the Japanese overstretched. In
Autumn 1941 Germany were keeping a lot from the Japanese about the war in
the USSR. Many German generals told Hitler it was unwinnable.
Simultaneously with the Pearl Harbor attack the Soviets countered at Moscow
with a massive battering ram that took the Germans way by surprise. If this
has occured one month earlier the Japanese would not have attacked the USA
and UK.

Just after Pearl Harbour the Japanese knew that the Germans would not defeat
the USSR as quick as they initially thought. The quick victory in Singapore
greatly assisted them, as they could not have expected to have won so
quickly. They had one days of ammunition left and were ready too surrender.
If the British had held out for a few more days they would have won. This
unexpected victory in Singapore allowed them to move to the Indian border.

The Japanese were expecting the Germans to be in the Middle East by 1942,
moving east. The setbacks in the USSR, meant by the time the Japanese has
reached the Indian border, they were on the defensive from India to the
Western Pacific. The hoped link up with the Germans in the Indian
sub-continent and the Germans turning their air fleet on the UK, and her
industry, and the Japanese moving much of the Kwantung Army to face the UK &
USA, was fading fast.

Japan did not fully wipe out the US fleet and underestimated the speed of US
industry to replace the sunken ships and have sunken ships in shallow water
at Pearl Harbor operational.

By June 1942, seven months after attacking the USA and UK, Japan were on the
defensive fighting alone against the USA and the British Commonwealth with
Germany clearly not going to defeat the USSR any time soon, and no link up
with German forces.

Tooze around page 322 goes into some of this.

Japan's impetus to attack the USA and UK was that they assumed the USSR
would be defeated by Germany. Pear Harbor was one month too early for them.

[Chris]

On Nov 12, 6:00 pm, "Bay Man"
Ah, now I get to discuss Adam Tooze's excellent book on the German
economy during World War Two. It is the result of years of careful
study, and a demonstrated willingness to read and study many primary
and secondary sources in both English and German. But, while the good
Professor was doing all of the study and work, other people were doing
the same level of work on how and why Japan was making her decisions.
To do that, they had to read the primary and secondary sources in
English and Japanese. So, we trust the people who are doing the work
on the German economy on the German economy, and we trust the people
doing the work on the Japanese political decision-making process on
the Japanese decision-making process.

Thanks, by the way, for quoting extensively from Tooze. It made it
easy to find in my copy. I do appreciate that.

Post by Bay Man
Note: "Hitler pledged himself to following Japan in a declaration of war on
the United States"

Which says nothing about whether Japan was willing to go to war
without Hitler's pledge. In point of fact, if you trace the footnotes
in the area you quoted you will find that they go to Christopher
Browning's _The Origins of the Final Solution_, Ian Kershaw's _Hitler
1936-1945: Nemesis_, and Saul Friedlaender's _Prelude to Downfall:
Hitler and the United States: 1933-41._ Those are books about Germany,
not Japan. There is no real insight to be gained about what the
Japanese were thinking from these sources. They are, of course, great
sources on Germany, you just don't want to base any argument about
Japan on them.

Now, Hitler (or more correctly, Joachim von Ribbentrop) pledged to
Japan that they would join a war with the US late in the evening of
November 28th, 1941 (Berlin time)- and it reached Japan on November
30th, 1941 Tokyo time. Let's consult a book by someone looking at
those Japanese sources: British historian H.P. Willmott's _Pearl
Harbor_ is one I happen to have on hand. As he says, in the summer of
1941 Japan increasingly was deciding for war- and on 4 September 1941
the decision was made to start the war by the end of October.
Diplomacy delayed the start by a bit, pushing it back to December, but
the Kido Butai had already left Hitokappu Bay four days before the
German's made this offer in question. While the Japanese theoretically
could have changed their mind at that point, it is exceedingly
unlikely.

Post by Bay Man
Without Germany declaring war on the USA the Japanese would not have moved
south.

Nope. Japan made the decision to go south long before they heard from
Germany.

Post by Bay Man
A few months before Pearl Harbour the Japanese refused Germany's
request to declare war on the UK. Hitler wanted the UK distracted as he
knew it would take longer to defeat the USSR.

This doesn't make much sense. If the Germans really did have control
over the Japanese decision-making, wouldn't it make more sense to have
them attack the USSR, whom Germany was already at war with?

[Re: Japanese army at Singapore]

Post by Bay Man
They had one days of ammunition left and were ready too surrender.
If the British had held out for a few more days they would have won. This
unexpected victory in Singapore allowed them to move to the Indian border.

I can't imagine that the Japanese would have surrendered. They would
have sat in their lines, not attacking, however. The best outcome (for
the Allies) would have been the Commonwealth forces holding out a few
months, like at Bataan. But the Japanese could resupply, and the ABDA
could not, so the end result would have been the same.

The early capture of Singapore might have prevented the Japanese from
capturing northern Burma, but could not have saved Rangoon, which was
captured entirely by forces not committed to Malaya.

Post by Bay Man
Japan's impetus to attack the USA and UK was that they assumed the USSR
would be defeated by Germany. Pear Harbor was one month too early for them.

Please consult a book on what the Japanese were actually thinking.

Chris Manteuffel

[Bay Man]

Post by Chris
On Nov 12, 6:00 pm, "Bay Man"
Thanks, by the way, for quoting extensively
from Tooze. It made it easy to find in my
copy. I do appreciate that.

Tooze has upset the propaganda cold war view of WW2.

Post by Chris

Post by Bay Man
Note: "Hitler pledged himself to following
Japan in a declaration of war on
the United States"

Which says nothing about whether
Japan was willing to go to war
without Hitler's pledge.

Germany, many times approached the Japanese

Post by Chris
Now, Hitler (or more correctly, Joachim
von Ribbentrop) pledged to Japan that
they would join a war with the US late
in the evening of November 28th, 1941
(Berlin time)- and it reached Japan on November
30th, 1941 Tokyo time.

<snip>

You confirm this fact.

Post by Chris

Post by Bay Man
Without Germany declaring war on
the USA the Japanese would not have moved
south.

Nope. Japan made the decision to go south
long before they heard from Germany.

If Germany was not aligning with Japan in any way, Japan moving to the vast
south, stretched very thin, would not have happened. Japan was fighting
China, they had also fought the USSR in 1939 and lost. If they took all
China the Soviets are to their north and east.

Unilaterally taking the north, meant less territory to occupy and supply,
and the land forces consolidated. It meant taking China and ridding the
Soviet threat to the north and east..and getting vital natural resources.

Going alone, taking the north was the natural move. Unilaterally taking the
south, was as mad as Germany attacking Brazil. To give you an idea of the
distances involved.

The southern attack was very spread out and difficult to supply. It was
risky and they would face three powers, two large and a smaller one. The
Japanese were hoping the Germans would see off the USSR, so they would not
be left alone fighting the UK and USA. They hoped to have occupied what
they had wanted and set up appropriate bases to resist any counter attacks
by the UK or USA - largely they did this. By the time any significant UK &
US attacks came the USSR would have been seen off by Germany.

As it happened, Japan was left alone to fight the UK and USA and 6 months
after Pearl Harbour was on the defensive.

Post by Chris

Post by Bay Man
A few months before Pearl Harbour the Japanese refused Germany's
request to declare war on the UK. Hitler wanted the UK distracted as he
knew it would take longer to defeat the USSR.

This doesn't make much sense. If the Germans really did have control
over the Japanese decision-making, wouldn't it make more sense to have
them attack the USSR, whom Germany was already at war with?

Germany was trying that. Japan had already been beaten by the USSR in 1939,
and had no heavy tanks. They knew of the T34 by late 1941. The Soviets did
have a substantial amount of troops in the Soviet Far East in case Japan
attacked.

The UK was amassing a large army and air force - the USA alone had pledged
50,000 planes per year, apart from UK production. Apart from the North
African campaign, which Germany punched way above her weight, assisted by
Italy, the two countries could not get at each other. Germany did not have
a navy of merit, and were upping U-Boat production to compensate.

The vast majority of the British Army could not get at the German Army.
This left only bombers, in which heavy air raids were increasing. Hitler
knew the UK, a greater industrial output than Germany, was arming like hell
and it would come his way sooner or later. The British Army was not
destroyed at Dunkirk and the Germans knew this. 6 months after the UK
retreated from France, the UK had wiped out Italian forces in North Africa
and was posed to take all the European shores of the Med along with Greece.

Hitler knew the UK would invade the European Continent. He wanted the USSR
out of the way before that happened and that war was faltering. His last
"hope" of finishing the USSR was in 1942. The Japanese could distract UK
forces, navy, RN and the vast merchant marine, and her industry.

Taking on the UK in a land war, while attempting to defeat the USSR, with
Germany being short of everything, was not what Hitler wanted. The RN
blockade of Germany was highly effective. He could not afford it. He
gamble on taking the USSR was faltering and fading fast.

The Japanese would distract the UK in UK production and forces, ensuring the
full locking of horns with the UK would be delayed or watered down
substantially. If, and when he defeated the USSR, German industry would
turn production to the air force for the coming air war. In fact the Germans
had wound down army production and upped aircraft production in June 1941,
being so confident of smashing the USSR by the end of 1941.

Post by Chris
[Re: Japanese army at Singapore]

Post by Bay Man
They had one days of ammunition left and
were ready too surrender. If the British had
held out for a few more days they would have
won. This unexpected victory in Singapore
allowed them to move to the Indian border.

I can't imagine that the Japanese would have
surrendered.

They would have been BEATEN, and resorted to knife attacks screaming
"banzie!" They had no ammunition.

Post by Chris
The early capture of Singapore might have prevented the Japanese from
capturing northern Burma, but could not have saved Rangoon, which was
captured entirely by forces not committed to Malaya.

They clearly would not have reached the Indian border. The UK would have
resupplied Singapore. The UK could do that quite quickly as UK resources
were largely not engaged and UK industrial output was much superior to
Japans.

The Japanese taking Singapore was really not favourable to the Germans, as
it would have been more to their benefit if a more protracted war was
emerging taking much UK resources. This would ensure the UK were not a great
threat on Hitler's western flank.

Post by Chris

Post by Bay Man
Japan's impetus to attack the USA and UK
was that they assumed the USSR
would be defeated by Germany. Pearl

Harbor was one month too early for them.
Please consult a book on what the Japanese
were actually thinking.

I consulted countless in my time. Most were garbage, pushed the Hollywood
view of WW2. To the point. I reiterate. Germany had taken France and
pushed the British off the European Continent - a combined, superior, force
that dwarfed Germany's. Japan was under the impression Germany would defeat
the USSR sharpish. By Autumn 1941 Germany had taken vast tracts of the USSR.
ON he surface Germany looked invincible. Germany was not revealing the full
truth about the faltering war, being unable to meet basic supply for their
forces, and the strength of Soviet forces, making out it would be won in
early 1942. Japan was duped.

If they had planned the Pearl Harbor attack in January 1942, the Japanese
may have postponed as it was obvious the Germans were not "stopped" at
Moscow in Dec 1941, but "counter-attacked" with a huge battering ram with
the best tank in the world at the time.

Everything was based on the USSR being defeated by Germany, with Germany
then having a free hand and entering the Middle East and then into India
linking up with Japan.

[David H Thornley]

Post by Bay Man
Japan would NEVER had attacked the UK and USA unilaterally if Germany
did not give commitments.

Would you care to give any sources from Japan, or historians who
have studied Japanese history, for that?

In fact, bad Japanese decisions earlier had set things up for
war with the US.

Let's start with the attack on China, arguably Japan's worst
decision of WWII (depending partly on when you consider WWII to have
started, of course). This used up lots of resources and was getting
nowhere, and was making the US unfriendly.

Because of the resource drain, the Japanese badly needed imports from
other countries, most importantly oil. The necessary imports to
sustain the war were not supported by Japanese exports, and so
meant a drain on Japanese foreign currency reserves. Willmott
estimates that Japan would have been broke around Spring 1942.

In the meantime, the Japanese continued alienating the US, and
by 1940 and 1941 this was getting serious. Roosevelt was lagging
public opinion in clamping down on the Japanese, since he didn't
want a war with Japan, but he had to go along to some extent.
It became harder and harder for Japan to get the resources needed
for the China War.

In mid-1941, Japan took the first step of the Pacific War, by
occupying southern Indochina. This was their first warlike move
in some time that wasn't part of fighting China (the earlier
occupation of northern Indochina was part of the encirclement
attempt against China). The move was to grab resources and
get bases for a larger attack later.

The US reaction was to clamp down hard on exports. This gave
the Japanese something of a deadline, as the current reserves of
oil and iron and other necessities would be depleted in the not-
so-distant future. The US was demanding Japanese withdrawal from
China before lifting the embargo.

So, the Japanese had several alternatives. The one nobody seems
to have taken seriously (in the Japanese government, anyway) was
pulling out of China and cutting their losses. Even some rabid
nationalists were in favor of this, as they saw the endless China
war sapping Japan's strength.

If the Japanese were not to end the China war, they needed resources
some other way. They needed to take the Dutch East Indies for oil,
and other places. (Having little concepts of economics or logistics,
they rather glossed over the fact that capturing the oilfields would
not move them a centimeter closer to Japan, and that Japan would be
importing oil, in wartime, using its own shipping, which was about
60% of what it needed.

Now, taking the Dutch East Indies and attacking nowhere else meant
a major power, acting unfriendly, with a major naval base (Manila
Bay) right between Japan and the Indies. The Japanese could have
taken that risk, and decided not to.

The Japanese were every bit as racist as the Germans, and like Hitler
regarded the US as soft and unwilling to prosecute a war. They were
even more provincial, and had much less idea of what a modern industrial
power could do.

Therefore, the Japanese decision for war with the US wasn't all that
related to what Germany was doing. It was a matter of war with the
US or backing out of China.
An excellent source for understanding the German economy, but
distinctly lacking in Japanese-language sources.

Post by Bay Man
Note: "Hitler pledged himself to following Japan in a declaration of war
on the United States"

Yup. That was a pledge, not a treaty. The Tripartite Pact called for
the Axis members to join in case one of them were attacked by the US,
not if one attacked.

Now, consider the treaties and promises Hitler had made while in power.
How many of them did he follow through on, except when convenient for
him? The Japanese had recent experience, with Hitler's casual disregard
of the Anti-Comintern Pact in August 1939.

The Japanese did some awfully stupid things in the war, but it isn't
clear to me that they were stupid enough to trust Hitler.

Post by Bay Man
Japan was seriously considering the northern attack (the USSR) or the
southern attack. Both offered essential natural resources. The southern
attack was spread very thin covering a vast amount of territory and sea.

The northern attack offered little oil, the oilfields now known being
undiscovered then. It wouldn't have sufficed. It also meant attacking
the Soviet Union, and risking another Nomonhan campaign. The Soviets
kept ample force to defend the Far East from the Japanese.

Post by Bay Man
Without Germany declaring war on the USA the Japanese would not have moved
south.

The problem with this is chronology.

The Japanese move south started about the time of Barbarossa, and
that pretty much made the Pacific War inevitable. The deliberations
of the Japanese government were pretty much focused on the necessity
of declaring war with the US, not the feasibility (and the Japanese Navy
knew, by and large, what it was getting itself into).

The decision to go to war took place before the pledge, and everything
after that was seeing if the US would somehow back down and start
shipping oil and pig iron.

A few months before Pearl Harbour the Japanese refused Germany's

Post by Bay Man
request to declare war on the UK. Hitler wanted the UK distracted as he
knew it would take longer to defeat the USSR.

What was in it for the Japanese?

And why would Hitler have thought it would take longer in, say, October?
The campaign wasn't actually going according to plan, but it sure looked
like the Soviets didn't have much left in the way of an army.

Post by Bay Man
The Germans needed the UK distracted as they were building up massive
forces, especially an air fleet. Hitler did not want to engage the USSR
and the UK simultaneously by himself in a two fronted land war. Hitler
knew the war with the USSR would be longer and not end by Christmas 1941.

When do you think he knew this, and why? In late November, it still
looked like it might well happen. Nobody had any idea that the Soviet
Union could hold on long after its incredible losses, far greater in
scale and suddenness than those that caused the Tsarist government to
fall in 1917.

Post by Bay Man
The Japanese would not attack the UK or USA. They were not equipped to
succeed by themselves.

Proof by blatant assertion? They were making plans, regardless of what
the Germans were going to do.

Post by Bay Man
Germany offering to declare war on the USA if Japan attacked the UK and
USA was tempting for Japan.

It was a good thing for Japan, but if you study what the Japanese
government was actually doing you'll realize that it had no real effect
on the Japanese decision.

Read some histories from people who studied the Japanese and had
access to Japanese sources.

Post by Bay Man
Germany did not defeat the USSR and left the Japanese overstretched.

The Japanese were overstretched to start with. Yamamoto had predicted
he would run wild in the Pacific for six months to a year, and was off
by only three days. Nagano, his superior, predicted in late 1941 that
he could hold the US off for two years, and it was roughly two years
after that that the inexorable Central Pacific offensive started.

Post by Bay Man
Just after Pearl Harbour the Japanese knew that the Germans would not
defeat the USSR as quick as they initially thought.

Irrelevant at the time.

The quick victory

Post by Bay Man
in Singapore greatly assisted them, as they could not have expected to
have won so quickly.

Certainly. The defense was botched very thoroughly. However, it's hard
to see what the quick win actually bought them, unless a faster win
in the Dutch East Indies.

They had one days of ammunition left and were

Post by Bay Man
ready too surrender.

Do you realize what it took to make Japanese surrender in WWII? It
took more than certain death, in most cases.

Post by Bay Man
The Japanese were expecting the Germans to be in the Middle East by
1942, moving east. The setbacks in the USSR, meant by the time the
Japanese has reached the Indian border, they were on the defensive from
India to the Western Pacific.

The Japanese overran Burma to the Indian border far earlier than August
1942, when they were put on the defensive. Up until May, their
offensives went smoothly with very few losses. In May and June, some
of their attacks were turned back with heavy losses, while others went
as planned. It wasn't until the invasion of Guadalcanal in August
that the Japanese were on the defensive anywhere, as opposed to not
succeeding in offensives, or not having the resources to push them
further.

The hoped link up with the Germans in the

Post by Bay Man
Indian sub-continent and the Germans turning their air fleet on the UK,
and her industry, and the Japanese moving much of the Kwantung Army to
face the UK & USA, was fading fast.

The Kwantung Army would have been of limited use against the US, as its
swimming ability was insufficient to reach US outposts, and the Japanese
really couldn't support many more troops in the Pacific.

Post by Bay Man
Japan did not fully wipe out the US fleet and underestimated the speed
of US industry to replace the sunken ships and have sunken ships in
shallow water at Pearl Harbor operational.

The ships sunk in shallow water were either irrecoverable or came back
to the Fleet in late 1943 or 1944, by which time it was already Too
Late. The Japanese couldn't have expected to wipe out the Pacific
Fleet with their attack force. Indeed, the US had nine battleships
that weren't at Pearl Harbor, in addition to the eight that were there.
They did have some bad luck about the carriers, though, it being very
likely that one would have been in port.

Post by Bay Man
By June 1942, seven months after attacking the USA and UK, Japan were on
the defensive fighting alone against the USA and the British
Commonwealth with Germany clearly not going to defeat the USSR any time
soon, and no link up with German forces.

Okay, what defensive were they on? Where were the Allies attacking
hard? They had failed to capture Port Moresby by sea, but had good
hopes of taking it by land. (They actually got fairly close.) They
had failed to take Midway, but had taken some Aleutian islands.

Post by Bay Man
Tooze around page 322 goes into some of this.

Tooze is taking a very German viewpoint, and is likely exaggerating
the effects of German decisions on Japanese decision-making. It's what
the Germans would have perceived.

Alternately, I was unaware that he'd written a history of the Pacific
War.

Post by Bay Man
Japan's impetus to attack the USA and UK was that they assumed the USSR
would be defeated by Germany.

Nope; resource shortage, unwillingness to pull out of China, and
incredible stupidity and short-sightedness. No Germans involved in
that decision.

Pear Harbor was one month too early for

Post by Bay Man
them.

Just for yuks, what do you think they would have done if the Pacific
stuff had been moved back by a month, and they planned to strike on,
say, the first Sunday in January? Just saying "they wouldn't have
attacked" is not entertaining enough for me, what would they actually
have done?

[Mario]

Post by David H Thornley
The Japanese were every bit as racist as the Germans, and like
Hitler regarded the US as soft and unwilling to prosecute a
war. They were even more provincial, and had much less idea
of what a modern industrial power could do.

This is not an objection but a question.

Is there some hindsight in that statement?

What was the situation as looked in the late 30's?

I don't know if racism had a role in German and Japanese
evaluation of USA attitude (and vice-versa), but IIRC after WW1
the USA were strongly isolationist and didn't join the LoN
(SDN).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_non-interventionism

That could have contributed to mislead German and Japanese
leadership.

I'd like to know more on that.

[m***@netMAPSONscape.net]

Post by David H Thornley
So, the Japanese had several alternatives. The one nobody seems
to have taken seriously (in the Japanese government, anyway) was
pulling out of China and cutting their losses. Even some rabid
nationalists were in favor of this, as they saw the endless China
war sapping Japan's strength.

And the odd thing (well, among the odd things) was that Japan didn't really
have any "losses" per se. The invasion wasn't for territory, but to
"punish" China for various border incidents, and one could certainly argue
that China was suitably punished by that time.

Post by David H Thornley
An excellent source for understanding the German economy, but
distinctly lacking in Japanese-language sources.

Post by Bay Man
Note: "Hitler pledged himself to following Japan in a declaration of war
on the United States"

Yup. That was a pledge, not a treaty. The Tripartite Pact called for
the Axis members to join in case one of them were attacked by the US,
not if one attacked.
Now, consider the treaties and promises Hitler had made while in power.
How many of them did he follow through on, except when convenient for
him? The Japanese had recent experience, with Hitler's casual disregard
of the Anti-Comintern Pact in August 1939.

And I haven't yet read a direct statement that Hitler actually pledged
this; I *HAVE* heard that Ribbentrop told the Japanese this, but that
is not the same thing.

Post by David H Thornley
The decision to go to war took place before the pledge, and everything
after that was seeing if the US would somehow back down and start
shipping oil and pig iron.

And according to Feis, this nearly happened; the US made a back-door
offer to the Japanese to return to the status-quo ante of June 1941,
prior to the total embargo and freeze on Japanese assets.

Post by David H Thornley

Post by Bay Man
The Japanese would not attack the UK or USA. They were not equipped to
succeed by themselves.

Proof by blatant assertion?

That and "Tooze sez it, I believe it, that settles it".

Post by David H Thornley
Read some histories from people who studied the Japanese and had
access to Japanese sources.

Why would he want to do that?

Mike

[Bay Man]

Post by David H Thornley

Post by Bay Man
Japan would NEVER had attacked the UK
and USA unilaterally if Germany
did not give commitments.

Would you care to give any sources
from Japan, or historians who
have studied Japanese history, for that?

I gave some info. Japan only committed when they knew Germany was with
them, who repeatedly were calling Japn to attack, after the talks with the
USA broke down.

Post by David H Thornley
In fact, bad Japanese decisions earlier had set things up for
war with the US.

A climate fir war and attacking are very different things.

Post by David H Thornley

Post by Bay Man
Note: "Hitler pledged himself to following
Japan in a declaration of war
on the United States"

Yup. That was a pledge, not a treaty.

I treaty eliminates surprise.

[m***@netMAPSONscape.net]

Post by Bay Man

Post by David H Thornley
Would you care to give any sources
from Japan, or historians who
have studied Japanese history, for that?

I gave some info. Japan only committed when they knew Germany was with
them, who repeatedly were calling Japn to attack, after the talks with the
USA broke down.

You gave precisely zero sources from Japan.

Your other information was wrong.

Japan committed to the attack before they heard from Ribbentrop that Hitler
agreed to declare war on the US. (See Toland, Gilbert, etc.)

Mike