Hitler Caught Napping - War Over

[cookie]

http://www.news.com.au/world/did-a-...wake-him-on-dday/story-fndir2ev-1226945299516

 

[Shangas]

Hahaha!! I heard about this. The kids' history show "Horrible Histories" even did a comedy sketch about it. It's really funny.

[video=youtube;ckicPSty7Pw]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ckicPSty7Pw[/video]

 

[Fastuni]

The course of history is often influenced by small and random factors.

However it did not cost Hitler "victory" (ok, the author qualifies that later on).
By mid-1944 eventual defeat was pretty much decided.
Only a question of how soon and how costly.

The scenario the author suggests - Hitler and Stalin agreeing to a negotiated peace and splitting up Europe is so 1939...
1944 the Red Army was on a roll and sparing Berlin and Hitler was not on the agenda.
Equally the Nazi leadership and German military establishment (including those opposed to Hitler in the end) agreed at least on continuing the war against the USSR.
As several abortive attempts showed, they were much more willing to enter a negotiated end of war with the Western powers.

 

[The Good]

That's very interesting! I haven't read this account before, although it makes sense. Adolf Hitler was an intimidating man to his generals, and a disturbance of his rest could indeed have had consequences. If Hitler were awake however, could his planning have drastically affected the Allied efforts in Normandy, or do you believe that the Nazis would have been defeated, regardless of his involvement?

 

[PADDY]

Stalingrad was the beginning of the end. But the run up to D Day was full of amazing deception by the Allies and had German High Command convinced of either the Pas de Calais invasion or possibly Norway. Things like a dummy full US Division in the UK with Patton heading it up, to a Monty double, to a fake allied officers body with secret papers found drowned (fake invasion papers of course), to a fake fuel depot opened by King George VI and numerous fake airfields, fuel dumps, landing crafts and transport (inflatable or wood & canvas) scattered across the UK. All this (As study of German Intelligence Docs post war showed) drew the Germans away from the intended invasion area and its timings.
The logistics and planning of this Op was breathtaking !

 

[ChiTownScion]

The problem for the German High Command was that their defensive strategy was a hybrid.

Erwin Rommel, who pretty much defined mobile offense and defense in North Africa, went contrary to all of that and favored fixed coastal defenses. His attitude was that if the Allies ever landed, the battle and the war were lost. This, he favored heavy emplaced forces: millions of marks spent on reinforced concrete fortresses, heavy artillery, etc. ( I've always felt that reliance upon such a Maginot Line defense plan was so uncharacteristic for him.)

Heinz Guderian, however, favored a more fluid and movable defense. His view was that the best strategy was to draw invading forces inland, out of range of naval artillery, cut them from their interior lines, and divide them.

What emerged was a plan dependent upon the rapid mobilization and utilization of smaller reserve forces, with diminished coastal stationary defenses. Not waking Hitler was the straw that broke it all: the German Atlantic Wall was breached within a day.

 

[the hairy bloke]

Sure, all of this explains some of the delay. What I would like to have explained is why Rommel's 2ic was chosen as NATO supreme commander not long after the organisation was founded. I just feel that the pass may well have been sold (literally). And thank God it was, but there is, to me a slight smell of fish.

 

[Veronica T]

Hitler did nazi that coming.

 

[TM]

Hitler reserved is panzers for his own authority. And he missed the timing. He also previously screwed up at Dunkirk, where he allowed Goering's air force to take the lead, instead of his panzers. Goering was not up to the task, and the Dunkirk evacuation was a successes. Micromanaging from a distance was one of his many mistakes.
Tony

 

[Shangas]

When you think about it, it was the Nazis themselves who proved that static, immovable defensive structures were useless in an age of mobile warfare.

It begs the question why they bothered to build the Atlantic Wall in the first place, if they knew this was the case.

 

[hatguy1]

That's very interesting! I haven't read this account before, although it makes sense. Adolf Hitler was an intimidating man to his generals, and a disturbance of his rest could indeed have had consequences. If Hitler were awake however, could his planning have drastically affected the Allied efforts in Normandy, or do you believe that the Nazis would have been defeated, regardless of his involvement?

This point is very well developed in the 1962 B&W WW2 classic, "The Longest Day." See scenes below:
[video]<iframe width="420" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/v7hbBG1imAA" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>[/video]