Could Hitler have won WW2 after losing the beaches of Normandy

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Hitler probably couldn't have won WW2 after the end of 1942, if ever. The writing was on the wall in one sense during Barbarossa, when the Germans thought they had the Soviets on the ropes. The Soviets started with 5.5 million men in theater, lost 6 million in the first 9 months, and despite those staggering losses, at the end of those 9 months, the force ratios had improved in the Soviets favour.

By the end of 1942 the German army had just lost too many men particularly in operation Uranus which trapped and destroyed the 6th army around Stalingrad. At the same time they'd been losing men at an unsustainable rate in the Rzhev salient. Even though operation Mars (to destroy the salient) was a failure for the Soviets, the Germans lost too many men and withdrew from the salient anyway, recognising they simply didn't have the manpower to defend the whole front any more.

By 1943, the Germans were attacking at Kursk on the Northern side with units so short of men that by pre-war German doctrine they would be considered unfit for combat operations - and that was at the spearhead of that effort where they concentrated their forces.

Basically, if Britain and America did nothing, Germany would still lose to the Soviets.

And even without Normandy, the allied forces had driven the axis out of north Africa and invaded Italy and taken it out of the war, so Germany was already fighting on a second southern front anyway as well as having lost its strongest European ally (for what that was worth). The Normandy landings may have sped up the end of the war, and taken some pressure of the Soviets, but ultimately it was very far from being decisive.

Upvote:4

No. He had lost the war in the East by the time of the Normandy invasions. Note where the Russian armies were in June 1944. Modern histories of WWII are beginning to be less 'west centric' and to see that there was continuous, severe fighting in the East and that Hitler concentrated his attention there, having secured his western 'rear'. In a sense he could never defeat the USSR, because Stalin had more men and could turn war production on with a vastly larger workforce than Hitler could ever summon, even with enslaved workers from subjugated areas of Europe.

Upvote:5

No.

Another poster has made a good case that Hitler had lost the war before Normandy. And even the threat of an invasion was enough to tie down over a million German troops in France, decisively weakening the German defense of Soviet territory. But Normandy was arguably the "last straw," or Hitler's last (slim) chance.

The best case scenario for Hitler would have been the failure of the Normandy landing (which was actually hostage to the weather), or driving the landing force into the sea. Under those circumstances, Hitler might have been able to "strip" the garrisons of France to bolster the Russian front, because the threat mentioned in the previous paragraph would have been diminished. Worse, a failure might have negatively impacted America's willingness to re-elect FDR to an unprecedented fourth term and continue the war. (This scenario actually happened in 1945 with Churchill in England, even with Allied successes.)

Once the Allies landed and stayed in Normandy, it was "game over." The landings were followed by more landings in southern France in August, 1944, that connected with the Normandy invasion force, but could have been used to outflank Italy, instead. Basically, Hitler couldn't contend with Anglo-American forces in Normandy, southern France, and Italy, simultaneously, as well as deal with the Russians. Eisenhower's "cross ruffing" strategy had succeeded.

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