Comments by "Nattygsbord" (@nattygsbord) on "Why did Hitler declare War on the USA?" video.

  1. Yep. Finland just wanted lost land back. Italy wanted an empire around their ocean and didn't wanna get involved on the eastern front. Japan just made a resource grab, and when that was done they then lacked any strategic thinking how to win the war.. they naivly hoped they could force America to negotiate peace if they gave them a knock out punch... but even a total destruction of the pacific fleet wouldn't have changed anything in the long run. Hitler attacked the Soviet Union without any idea on how to put such a huge landmass under his control. And just like Japans war on U.S, Hitlers declaration of war was to a large degree just based on personal feelings.
    7
  2. Battle of Britain. Taking Crete instead of Malta. And operation Barbarossa.
    3
  3. The Austro-Hungrian army sucked because it was led by the worst military commander in history - Conrad von Hötzendorf. And the defence spending was quite before the war, and the Army had the equal number of Divisions in 1914 as in 1866, despite the population had doubled. So the country never came close to its full potential in the First world war. Austria literarly lost most of its army in just the first few weeks of the war.
    2
  4. 1939 - Crushing Poland so fast that France stop them. 1940 - Secure Swedish Iron shipments by capturing the Ice free harbour at Narvik where the Iron gets shipped to Germany. - May 1940, capture the Benelux countries and push into France without crossing the Maginot line. 1941 -Put Balkans under Axis control, and then securing Crete in order to deny allied bombers the ability to bomb Romanian oil fields. Troops are sent to North Africa to save the Italian Army there from collapsing. -June 1941, The largest military operation in history begin, when Hitler attack Soviet Russia. The objective is to destroy the Russian army as fast as possible, and no army in history have suffered so heavy losses as the Russians did in 1941. But the losses for the Germans were also enormous, even if they were nowhere near as bad as the Russians. -October 1941, Since Germany now controls huge areas of land and inflicted heavy losses on their enemy, it is decided to end the war in Russia with the capture of Moscow, and the Germans push forward under heavy losses but fail to capture their goals. 1942 Russia have gathered large numbers of men from all over Russia, and decides to throw in everything they got in a winteroffensive all along the Russian front. And the German army was exhausted by the losses from the previous year, many had also frozen to death by the winter, and much of their tanks, guns and planes couldn't be used in the cold... so when the Russians attacked, the German army wasn't strong enough to hold them back so they were pushed back 100km before the Russians could be stopped. The Russian troops had moved forward so hastenly that they didn't know where to go, and the units where spread out and couldn't support each other and couldn't get enough fuel, ammo and food forward to them when they had moved so deep into enemy lands so fast. So the Germans simply encircled and destroyed each russian unit one by one. And Stalins winteroffensive ended up as a worse disaster for the Russians than for the Germans. But the German retreat during the winter had also meant that troops had to abandon much of their heavy equipment so they could retreat fast enough without getting caugt by the Russians. So Germany had lost huge number of guns, tanks, trucks and transport planes. -may 1942, Hitler changes his plans. Moscow is no longer a target.. its too well defended and can't guarantee an end to the war. Hitler understands that this war will probably last for years and to win he needs recources. So he decides to take Southern Russia instead. And if he succedes he could solve Germanys problems of consuming more food and oil than they produce. And losing Southern Russia would also mean a heavy blow to Russia, even losing those resources in the shortrun would be devestating. So Hitler starts Operation Blue, with the best Divisions of his army and support them with his best air units. The heavy losses Germany had simply didn't allow for any attack into Russia on all fronts like in 1941. And Hitler captures Kiev, he takes Crimea, Kharkov and Rostov.. and he almost takes Stalingrad.......................... But then Russia makes a huge counterattack on the entire eastern front like in 1941. Outside Moscow a huge German army is under threat of getting encircled and crushed, and is fighting for their lives in the battle of Rzhev. And at the same time is an equally epic battle going on in Stalingrad, where the Russians succesfully have encirled the German 6th Army.. which is now fighting for their lives to get out of the ring the Russians have formed around them. But the Russian forces is too strong, and the German troops is starving, and lacking medicines, ammunition and fuel to fight effectivly. And finally gets forced to surrender. Which is a disaster for Germany, who needed that 6th Army more than ever to fight a war that has grown even larger when USA joined it. And the loss of it, created a big open hole in the German frontline at the south. And 1942 was not a good year for the navy either. And the war went to shit for japan as well after unrepairable losses at Midway and Guadacanal. The battle in Europe and North Africa in 1942 was supposed to be the year when the Axis powers should have used the time to deal a big punch to the Allies so they couldn't recover until the war in Russia was over. It was important to punch hard in 1942, because America wasn't still ready for war. Their industry hadn't geared up yet, and millions of new troops had to be equiped, trained and then sent to Europe.... and that would take a year before they could get strong enough to become a real threat to Germany. So what did Germany do on the western front in 1942? Nothing. They thought about capturing Malta with paratroopers, to stop allied planes and ships from harassing supply ships. But the operation was canceled at the last moment, because it was wrongly considered that the operation was unnessary when Rommels Afrika Korps had inflicted a devestating defeat on the allies with the capture of Tobruk.
    2
  5. Nonetheless it was a stupid decision to go to war with US. The shipments America made in 1941 and 1942 were tiny, and not near sufficient to replace more than a fraction of the huge losses Russia had. Roosevelt was also restricted in his efforts to help his friends when the American people didn't want to get involved in the war.. so if Hitler had made 1942 and 1943 equally catastrophic for the red army as the losses it had in 1941, then Roosevelt could have done very little to save Russia from defeat. The war against America forced Hitler to divert manpower to the western front, and fighters had to protect German cities, ships and support the armies on the less important western front. Tonnes of steel have to go to making uboats instead of constructing guns and tanks. The declaration of war against America was idiotic. And Japans prospects of defeating America was even worse than Hitlers. Their decision of starting a war against an enemy that they doesn't even had a theoretical possibility to defeat.. makes it the dumbest military-political decision in history.
    1
  6. bah... too much writing. Part II has to wait.. if it ever comes. We should see.
    1
  7. The reason why I call battle of Britain a mistake wasn't because the Germans failed to crush the RAF, but I rather see it as an unnessary waste of pilots and planes to do the air battles to begin with. Had I been in charge I would attack british ships only, and putting the brits into dilemma: lose the ships, or lose air planes while defending the ships.
    1
  8. The Dunkirk order came from Hitlers generals and not from Hitler himself, and the "not a step back" order Hitler gave was oftentimes idiotic... since germany was much better at defence in depth and at making counterattacks against an overextented enemy like (Kharkov 1943).... but in 1941, most military historians agree that Hitlers order saved the army from completly collapse after Stalin launched his winter offensive.
    1