Alright, so, this reading is all about Hitler's and the High Command German Army's descent into Russia and Moscow. This author seems to write about Hitler's faults and weaknesses as a commander a little more heavily than we've read before. Most of this comes from Hitler's one, main obsession: glory.
So I have two questions to discuss about this:
1) Hitler was completely untrained in commanding a military and made unrealistic strategies for the Army; so why did the commanders go along with it? They warned Hitler against his ridiculously suicidal plans but never actually stood up against him. Why? They had the masses so why not take a better, smarter course of action without his consent to show him what they were talking about? Was it because of the ever prominent Nazi fear?
2) Hitler and the German government were extremely frustrated with the Japanese decision to attack Pearl Harbor and to declare war on the U.S. But this all changed when Pearl Harbor was such a success for the Japanese; Hitler upon seeing this immediately decided to declare war on the U.S. as well, going against the Tripartite Pact. If Pearl Harbor had failed, do you think Germany would have ever declared war on the U.S.?
1) Even though Hitler was untrained, he managed to make several lucky guesses. These led him to believe that he was perfectly capable of leading the military by himself, so whenever a commander disagreed with him, he would ignore the commander anyway. He had an enormous ego, so if a commander had ignored Hitler and done what he thought was best, the commander would probably face dire consequences.
ReplyDelete2) I think that Hitler probably would have had to declare war on the U.S. eventually, even if Pearl Harbor hadn't happened. We were providing so many supplies to the Allies that Hitler couldn't keep ignoring our supply ships. If he couldn't attack them because they were merchant ships, he would have needed an excuse.
1.) Well I think Hitler played largely on fear and so many of his commanders were probably afraid of crossing him, I mean he made it a pretty well known fact that if you got on his bad side you didn't have very long to live. Also they probably thought that on the off chance he was successful and they were a part of it they could reap some of the benefits as well. I also agree with Shannon's statement about his luck boosting his ego, I mean look at how many times he should've been dead, he definitely had luck on his side.
ReplyDelete2.)I believe Germany would've declared war on the U.S. eventually and if not we would've declared war on them. There was too much friction not to, with what Shannon said about us supplying the Allied Powers, and the German U-boats and the dictatorship versus our democracy, it was a dry forest waiting to catch fire, in the case the spark just happened to be Pearl Harbor. I also believe that Hitler's ambition would've gotten the best of him eventually and he wouldn't have just wanted to settle for conquering Europe, he would want the U.S. as well, and that would've also led to conflict.
For the first question, I think it was because of how things go in the military. You are trained to follow your leaders without question, and that's what they did. They followed Hitler, their leader, who stirred the army's nationalistic pride. They joined the army to fight for their country, and here was this guy telling them how. As for the second question, I agree with both Tess and Shannon. There was too much friction for one of them to be able to not declare war on the other.
ReplyDeleteI think (like Kaylan said) that's how the military works. It's not acceptable to go against a command, and he could have any dessenters killed. They were being forced to be in the army, and to a cetain extent I think they believed in their cause. Likewise, I agree that Germany and the US would have eventually declared war on each other, because the US wasn't exactly being nuetral, and Germany would have wanted to (eventually) go to war with them. I think they would have wanted to defeat Britian first though.
ReplyDelete1. I think fear was a strong deterrent for most people, they just didn't want to cross Hitler for fear of what might happen. Also, like Kaylan and Melissa said, that's just sort of how things work. I don't think anyone would really be okay with bypassing the proper chain of command.
ReplyDelete2. If Pearl Harbor had failed I think Germany would have been really mad at Japan. At first, I don't think declaring war on the US would be what they wanted to do, for fear of what would happen whent he US got involved. However, I think the US would have eventually got into the war anyways, causing Germany to have to declare war.
Ok for your first question I would say that there were plans made in WWI that didnt work either and that were crazy and poeple knew they probably wouldnt work, why did they use those.. because they had no other options and they didnt know what else to do. Could it be possible that the Germans at this time didnt really know what else to do other than follow Hitlers radicle ideas?
ReplyDelete2. I dont think that Germany would have declared war on the US because they would have to fight the U.S. all by themselves and wouldnt have Japan to fight the U.S for them!
I think Hitler was supposed to be an all-knowing solution. As much as Germany wanted to believe he could solve their problems, so did the army. So I think their lack of protest was simply because they believed in who Hitler created himself to be, a hero.
ReplyDeleteI think if Hitler had secured Europe, and had time to settle and reorganize he most certainly would have turned to the US next. With Japan safely holding Asia and having already depleted US resources I'm sure Hitler would have wanted in on what could have been an easy victory two against one.
I think that Hitler was able to get away with a lot of what he did militarily was due to groupthink. Groupthink is a type of thought within a deeply cohesive in-group whose members try to minimize conflict and reach consensus without critically testing, analyzing, and evaluating ideas. I think it was easier for them to agree with Hitler and not cause tension then it would have been to convince him of other idea. So even if it was a bad idea they were not on the field dieing why bother risking angering the man.
ReplyDeleteI think it could of gone either way. The one way has been talked about and I feel I would just be repeating others. Katie has the same general idea about this that I have. The other way I feel it could play play out is that we make Hitler out to want to control the world but I think that he would have been content with controlling Europe. Even if he did push out of Europe, I think the instability in Africa and the resistivity of the Middle East would have kept his hands full until his death. This is assuming that the US would not declare war on Germany.
1)I think part of the reason for the advisers going along with Hitler's plans is, like Lauren mentioned, due to that ever-present fear of the Nazi regime. But also, most of the people closest to Hitler in rank were totally on board with his vision, they knew what was up and they were still going along with it. They thought he was fantastic. And, although he didn't have any military tactical training, he had actually been doing a pretty good job up until 1941, so it wouldn't be ridiculous for these people to have a certain amount of trust in him, and again, a certain fear of blatantly disagreeing, and losing their job at the very least, possibly their life. Kind of tying into AJ's point about 'groupthink' I guess.
ReplyDelete2)I think that even if Pearl Harbor hadn't happened, war between the U.S. and Germany would have happened eventually. The United States would not have been able to stay out of the war forever, for a number of reasons. A humanitarian obligation to get involved in the Holocaust is a debatable motivation for joining the war, but paired with the need to stop Hitler's expansion of fascism and threat to democracy, as well as the United States obligation to prevent the destruction of its allies Britain and France, there was just no staying out of it.
1. I think that Hitler did have some lucky guesses while making his military plans, even though he had little training. Fear of him and the Nazis was definitely a reason why people didn't go against him; he was in charge and they knew they could easily be 'taken care of' by the Nazis if they disagreed with him.
ReplyDelete2. I think that war between Germany and the U.S. would have still happened without Pearl Harbor. Like Shannon said, Germany knew about how much supplies was being sent to the Allies by the U.S., so that was a perfectly good reason for Germany to declare war. The U.S. was helping the Allies, so they weren't on Germany's side, so war would eventually happen between them.
1. I think that fear was the main factor. I mean he came to power with little experience, and the Germans found him to be a good leader so who is to say he wouldn't succeed. But I also think that he had a really good way of selling his ideas and he did get some tactics right. He had control and if you went against him death was there to met you, so fear I would have to say controlled the military leaders.
ReplyDelete2.I think even with out Pearl Harbour the US would have joined the war eventually. The US like in WW1 was a supplier and in support of the allied powers, although their location kept them out of the war directly, eventually some event would have caused them to join. Germany also had hatred for democracy, it stood against everything his govt was for, so I think that he would eventually wanted to try to end that, mch like he wanted to with communism in Russia.
Even though the masses may not have known about the murders Hitler committed behind the scenes, I'm willing to bet those higher up on the "food chain" did. If they went against Hitler's plans and battle strategies, who's to say Hitler wouldn't have had them killed, or just openly killed them, since by now there was no one to stop him from doing whatever he wanted?
ReplyDeleteAlso, I don't think Germany would have declared war on the US if Pearl Harbor had failed. In addition to the fact that a good portion of the US's military supplies were wiped out, the attack on Pearl Harbor also provoked the US into going to war. If the attack had failed, all you would take away was that a good portion of the US's military supplies would NOT have been wiped out, and the US would still have gone to war on Japan; I believe Germany would not have gone to war with the US because the US would, from Germany's point of view, be much more effective in war if Pearl Harbor had failed.
Also, going along with what Kaitlyn said and just to clarify, I do believe that the US would have eventually joined the war. However, I don't think Germany would have declared war on the US if Pearl Harbor had failed; I think they would have had to wait till later on when the US officially joined the war.
ReplyDeleteWell Hitlers commanders did try later on in the war to kill him and they were unsuccessful. Hitler was a scary person and the fact that attempted assinations kept failing gave him a sense of immortality to other people. Also the German army swore its allegiance to him and only him. As for the Pearl Harbor thing, I don't think that Hitler would have been so hasty to declare war on the U.S. if Pearl Harbor failed. The success of the attack made him think the U.S. would be easy to defeat.
ReplyDeleteHitler was an utter fail as an commander he didn't have the experience like Patton, Eisenhower or Montgomery had (eventhough I still hate him) and most of his military actions ended up as a fail. However many commanders still feared him because of the power they had. Or maybe the other ranking commanders were just using Hitler to get their own means such as Goring who was in charge of the German airforce. In more than one occasion he convinced Hitler for him to use Gorings own stratagies rather than others which more than often ended up as a fail. Also for Pearl Harbor the Germans wouldn't have declared war on Germany if Pearl Harbor was a fail because then they would think the U.S would be a force to be reckoned with.
ReplyDeleteHitler made sure as he rose to power that no one would take him down. I agree with most everyone, that Hitler was extremely prideful. He wouldn't let the Allies take him down, he killed himself to prevent that. His commanders may not have agreed with him, but he was the one who put them in power, and they were the ones who had to submit to his power as well.
ReplyDeleteAlthough Pearl Harbor was successful, I don't think you can guage the power of the U.S. solely on one attack on a distant island off the coast of the U.S. I think that it was unwise of Hitler to immediately take action and that if he wanted to have a better chance of success, he should have let Japan weaken and spread out U.S. troops.