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More simply put, Germany has poor distribution of vital natural resources for industry and warfare, it needs to import a lot of its raw materials, so has and always will struggle in elongated wars.
Even that isn't true: Germany had good distribution of resources (plenty of steel, coal, and other things neccessary for fighting) it didn't have everything, but then again, no one did. Germany's problem was diplomatic, material.
I can certainly understand, most people have a better way of spending those minutes.
It made diplomatic missteps but even if somehow it had played the diplomatic game perfectly, it’s lack of oil spelled doom. Having enough coal and iron was no longer a sufficient basis to wage a major war once the internal combustion engine ruled all forms of mobility, both strategic, and tactical.
Daniel Yergin’s famous and award winning book ‘The Prize’ which is a history of the oil industry up til ~ 1990 does an incredibly effective job of explaining exactly how hopeless the strategic material position of the Axis was in WWII.
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No it did not. It was robbing the civillian sector of steel to produce munitions. One of the primary problems for Germany was that the occupied territories plunged in production of coal (which was the major source of energy in occupied Europe), mostly a cause of the huge drop in rations. To highlight this issue, France was Europe's largest importer of Coal, despite being the third largest producer. In 1941, Germany was effectively subsidizing the rest of Europe and following Barbarossa, there were fewer imports and then there was insufficient rolling stock to transport what German coal was mined around Europe.
This had a disastrous effect on mobilizing the industries of those occupied nations which ultimately stunted production in Germany.
umm... they were fighting the 1st, 2nd, and 3rd most powerful countries in the world, simultaneously, on three fronts.
Germany's problem was less that they were robbing the civilian sector of steel than they weren't robbing ENOUGH steel from the civilian sector. Germany didn't really get on total war footing until 1944, and by then, it was too late.
There wasn't enough total coal and steel production capacity in the portion of Europe that the Nazi's captured for it to have mattered anyway. They could have perfectly utilized every possible resource at their disposal from day 1 of the war and would have lost anyway. The disparity in resources available between the powers is truly enormous. It was only by good luck, strategic and tactical initiative, and poor initial plans by their enemies that Germany did as well as they did.
true enough. as i mentioned, they were fighting the 1st, 2nd, and 3rd most powerful countries in the world - the odds were long. but that's no excuse for fighting a war for global domination on the cheap, which is what they did.
They couldn't afford to pull more steel out of the civilian sector than they did, and I'd venture to say that they took too much. Things like locomotives and rolling stock, trucks, and various other "essentials" were deprived of steel in order to build guns and armor. A few years down the road, the shortage of those same civilian items came back to haunt them when they needed more transportation assets to conduct operations deep in the Soviet Union.
You can only rob Peter to pay Paul for so long until you have to reimburse Peter, and Germany simply couldn't keep doing what it was doing with the limited resources at its disposal. Germany's entire strategy centered around hitting hard enough, and quickly enough, to force a surrender by their opponents. Germany geared itself for a short, violent war. There was no way to win a long war, so when the Allies and the Soviets failed to conform to Hitler's expectations, despite intense pressure to fold, the end result was inevitable. Of course, the treatment of occupied populations and other war crimes made surrender seem like a bad ideal, so the Nazis ended up shooting themselves in the foot on that aspect of the war. A "kinder, gentler tyranny" might actually have had a chance of negotiating some kind of truce with favorable terms, but when the choice was between fighting to the bitter end or else annihilation, there really wasn't much of a choice.
Germany didn't have the navy to seriously threaten the UK, and had zero hope of invading the US. The Soviet Union might have collapsed politically, but it was still beyond the Germans' ability to forcibly occupy and control more than a small portion of that gigantic landmass. The bottom line was that the war could not be won unless the enemy lost the will to continue the fight before Germany lost the ability to fight.
You can only rob Peter to pay Paul for so long until you have to reimburse Peter, and Germany simply couldn't keep doing what it was doing with the limited resources at its disposal. Germany's entire strategy centered around hitting hard enough, and quickly enough, to force a surrender by their opponents. Germany geared itself for a short, violent war. There was no way to win a long war, so when the Allies and the Soviets failed to conform to Hitler's expectations, despite intense pressure to fold, the end result was inevitable. Of course, the treatment of occupied populations and other war crimes made surrender seem like a bad ideal, so the Nazis ended up shooting themselves in the foot on that aspect of the war. A "kinder, gentler tyranny" might actually have had a chance of negotiating some kind of truce with favorable terms, but when the choice was between fighting to the bitter end or else annihilation, there really wasn't much of a choice.
Germany didn't have the navy to seriously threaten the UK, and had zero hope of invading the US. The Soviet Union might have collapsed politically, but it was still beyond the Germans' ability to forcibly occupy and control more than a small portion of that gigantic landmass. The bottom line was that the war could not be won unless the enemy lost the will to continue the fight before Germany lost the ability to fight.
This kind of negotiated peace happened in October 1938. The German political and military leadership was just dumb so they cannot accept a victory without firing a shot (even though they should have known that they were already on the part of the armaments cycle which favored their enemies, therefore they should have played dovish).
they got lucky they even got that far. If Czechoslovakia or even Austria fought back, the german army was is no real position to conduct such an offensive war in early to mid 1938.
They lacked the experience in such offensives. On the other hand there was no way that the UK decides to support these countries and mobilize all of its 12 Hurricane MkI-s. So in the end it is a country of 70 million against another one of 15. The results are pretty predictable.
If it was like the low countries, then yes, but it is the Sudetenland, which is heavily mountainous and heavily fortified.
The Czech had no access to a port facility and had to defend from three sides (there might be no shooting war with Hungary, but they are going to theaten to cut the important railway link to Romania). They had zero chance in a defensive war... that is the reason they accepted the results of Munich.
With 20/20 hindsight is there a way for a small landlocked country to achieve victory? Their defense was based on the fact that France is going to declare war followed by UK. This did not happen, so they quit and saved their country from complete destruction.
Yes, they had a formidable defense line and Germany wasnt ready for war in 1938. A shooting war between the Czech and Germany in 1938 could have had alot of consequences including general staff removing Hitler.
Its all speculation of course.
they had lots of tanks and would be fighting a defensive war against a single adversary.
germany on the other hand, would have to worry about france and poland. i think the czechs would have been awful formidable - but when they lost the sudeten they were done.