Fighting silly odds a close second.
Production is the main substantive reason.
Had Germany designed and produced what it was capable of, their chances of success would have been far greater, even likley, bad leadership prevented them producing what they needed, fighting silly odds meant they needed it.
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Partly because she acquired so many powerful enemies that they, combined, had many times the men and resources that Germany had. Also partly because Adolf Hitler assumed personal operational command of the German armed forces and did not know how to develop effective tactics and strategies. He though if he said something it must be true and that if he gave an order it would be carried out. Thus when his armies were overwhelmed by vastly superior forces which he claimed did not exist, he would have screaming fits and refuse to believe what he was being told. Michael Montagne
* Hitler. Start with Africa: it's amazing what Rommel accomplished with a hand full of men the 361st Panzergrenaider reg was made up of WW I veterans who had joined the French foreign legion he was always scraping for men and equipment.
After the Africa Korps had been pushed back to Tunisia Hitler saw his mistake and sent reinforcements including the 10th Panzer division and some Tiger tanks had these forces been sent much earlier I believe the Germans could have taken Egypt.
Most historians say Germany could never have conquered Russia, but this is not true. Some 3.5 million soldiers were encircled in the Ukraine I have seen film of the Ukrainians with flowers and kisses for the German soldiers much like when Allied soldiers liberated France. They hated Stalin, and had Hitler played his cards right many of these soldiers would have joined in the attack on Moscow. As it was the top German generals advised bypassing these surrounded Russian soldiers and marching on Moscow but Hitler insisted on smashing them than send in the SS. This delayed the attack on Moscow and put the Germans up against Russia's best weapon: mother winter. As it was they still could have taken Moscow but Hitler decided to take Leningrad at the same time and took vital divisions from the Moscow front.
Stalingrad was all Hitler's fault: sending Panzer divisions into a city was madness and what about Kurst? The Russians put everything thing they had into the battle after Stalingrad. Field Marshall Von Mainstien had the newly upgraded SS Panser Divisions, he crushed the Russians. Stalin wrote that they were never closer to defeat, the only thing that stopped the Germans was the rain but the battle could have continued a few months later when the ground froze. Instead Hitler decided to wait till summer so the new Panther tank could be used. Von Mainstien called this military suicide. Any commander with a half a brain would have called the battle off sooner but Hitler allowed his whole army to be ground into Hamburger.
The ME 262 jet fighter could have been deployed in early 1943 and would have put a stop to US daylight bombing but he insisted it be redesigned as a bomber. The top German aces eventually mutinied and refused to fly Hitler gave in and allowed 1 squadron of jet fighters. It was Hitler who ordered the attack in France that resulted in the massacre of German armor at Falise he was a buffoon.
* Germany lost world war 2 because Hitler when he invaded France, could have destroyed the rest of the British army at Dunkirk but instead he just sat there. and in North Africa Had Rommel Had more supply,tanks,men he could have easily taken Egypt. In Russia had Hitler not invaded the Caucasus Mountains and concentrated those forces in to the attack on Stalingrad thus taking the city and establishing bridgeheads across the Volga River, then driving onto Moscow. But of course Hitler invaded the cauces and the Crimea. This was unnecessary. This held even more units back frome the real objective Moscow.
Germany lost the war because Hitler didn't listen to his Generals, made decisions without thinking, and had no care for his troops.
The short answer, I suppose, is that Hitler ignored his own advice. In "Mein Kampf" he was critical of Germany's attempt to fight a "two front" war in World War I. In the Second World War, he turned around and did the same thing by attacking the Soviet Union. That was the beginning of the end. "Those who do not learn from history are doomed to repeat it."
UPDATE: The reason Germany lost WW2 is because they were fighting on too many fronts. Deciding to attack Russia was a bad idea, as well as declaring war on the US. For some reason the US put 85% of its forces into Europe rather than attacking Japan after their cowardly attack on us. Hitler was a great leader. He was Time's man of the year and got his country out of a major slump.
Britain gained air superioty, Germany lacked resources and had gained too many enemies to think they stood a chance of winning. NO HITLER!
Like said before Nazi Germany had made the whole world its enemy hence world war. But the real reason is Hitler's crazy ideas like setting Panzer and infantry rally points hundreds of miles behind enemy lines. Sure the Blitz tactic was made to move fast but that was to far and if they didn't meet the rally point on the certain day Hitler became angry and moved them even farther back. This was crazy tanks would be stuck for days with no fuel and low ammunition How are you supposed to fight with only 10 shots? The fuel trucks came to the tanks not the tanks to the fuel trucks so that was a problem If the tanks had a real problem the infantry may be 3 or 4 days behind them which was also a problem. Then the Germans should have been happy with all of Europe besides Britain for a while. They should have built up and waited for operation Seal Lion to work. This operation was one of the best that the German's had made up. Basically it was the German D-day. But this plan had thousands of tanks and infantry landing on beaches with even more troops coming from the sky. But instead of being patient Hitler decided to run off and attack Russia. This was one of the dumbest ideas ever. Sending huge amounts of troops and aircraft to try and take Russia in a year? What was he thinking. No snow clothing, little food, and half of the troops going where needed for operation Sea Lion. What was he thinking. Now the Russians where angry and that is never good because they are so hard to break. They had to be some of the loyalist fighters the world has ever seen. Staking themselves to the ground so they wouldn't retreat! That shows amazing loyalty and should be respected to the max. But anyway now they where spread so thin and outnumbered the chances where so low of victory. They started to need fuel. They where done.
What should have been done is wait for all of Europe to be taken control of. Then don't kill the Jews that was just wrong and not a good way to make Allies After a nice army is remade invade Africa Hold the line and slowly move forward DO NOT GET AMERICA INVOLVED! That was so deadly to the Germans. Now take 1/2 of the German army and take the middle east. Make that modern take the oil and make a strong German land. Get all of the other nations to get to love you for modernising that area. Then get them to join your armies and take all the oil you need. Then back to Africa and keep moving up with fresh soldiers, fuel, and machinery During this be sucking up to Russia so they are very happy with you. Now you have Africa. Poor money into it. Modernise it and bring it out of poverty. Then get all the resources and soldiers you need move your entire army but those needed for riot control and move towards Russia. Get you food and winter clothing for all of your troops. When it is Spring attack with the blitz tactics. You should move forward without crazy rally points. After you take all of Russia which should take about two years if everything goes right put down all riots. Take control of Russia and hold it. Earn the love and respect of the people so they don't want to leave. Let them have a mini Russia inside of Germany so they still are happy about that. Then hold out till you have lots of stuff then the final assault on the US. Don't attack anywhere else because the US will build up defences. After a long hard fight you should have the US. Take Canada then move down to south America After that take anywhere else you don't have that camping would take around 7 years if everything went right. And don't kill Jews because that will cause an uproar from everywhere and you won't be able to but all the revolts down. And that is how the Germans could have taken over the world.
UPDATE: 6/13/09 IGNORE THE ABOVE!!!!!!! The United States would have entered the war one way or another due to the fact that Britian was their closest ally and they could not sit and watch them be destroyed by Germany. It is very possible that the United States was aware of the attack on Pearl Harbor and allowed the attack to occur to enter the war. If they knew it would be as bad as it was they probably would have prepared for the attack. Back to Germany; Germany lost World War Two for many reasons including Hitlers horrible war tactics, Germany running low on resources for the war, having to many enemies to fight, and having allies that did not have strong militaries and good war tactics. Hitler was some what a good leader for making Germany what it was and he was also a horrible leader for running Germany into the ground. Germany was meant to lose the war because of the many mistakes it made and their is no possible way that they could have taken over the world but possibly Europe. Germany losing World War Two was because of its leader and because of him making poor decisions and becoming corrupt from the absolute power he had.
ADDITION!!!!!!!!!!!!
What was said above about invading the U.S was stupid. #1- Russia was planning on entering the war a few months after Germany attacked her anyway. I do agree on sucking up though. This may have postponed their attack. #2- A beach landing of Amrica? D-Day was possible because they were only crossing the English Channel. An entire ocean completly stopped hitler from invading US soil. Not to mention Germany never attacked the US in the first place. It was japan. Japan itself was far too small to stage a beach landing on the West coast of the USA, and Hitler wuld have had to gone through Russia anyway to get there. During all these troop movements, Britain would attack German-occupied France. Even if Britain was gone and done with, the US and Canada would have the strongest army and navy in the world; diminishing any attempt to invade America. #3- Hitler didn't kill the Jews because he didn't like them or just because he felt like it. He did son so he could have a scapegoat for Germany's then poor financial position. This rallied the people and made them love Hitler for making their poverty make sense.
commit crimes against humanity
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* The key year to look at is 1941. At the start of the year Germany had the initiative; but by the end of the year Hitler had thrown away that avantage quite unnecessarily. Early in the year Britain and the Commonwealth were of course still fighting, but their chances of defeating Germany were nil. During 1941 Germany attacked the Soviet Union and declared war on the U.S. From December 1941 on Germany found itself reacting to events - which was a huge disadvantage. 1942 became the 'make or break' year for Germany, and after Stalingrad, Germany was only able to prolong the war - not win it or even negotiate a tolerable peace treaty.
* Choice of main allies. The alliance with Italy was millstone round the Nazis' neck. Japan would only have made sense as an ally if it had attacked the Soviet Union in the Far East. Hitler's main alliance was based on ideology, not on shared interests.
UPDATE!
The above post is horribly and sadly false.
1. Germany was fighting three total fronts; The European, Russian and African. Hitler took France and his Panzer divisions were pushing into Spain. Hitler was a military tactical genious.
2. The US wanted into the war but at the time the population polls were against us entering the war. Since nothing had happened against the US we were neutral, however we were supplying England with money to keep Hitler out.
3. Hitler formed an alliance with Mussolini in the European front. He allied with different African tribes in the African campaign. Japan allied with Germany and Hitler, because they knew Hitler would win. He knew that they did not share the same ideology as these other leaders. The also discovered documents where Hitler had offered and secured officals close to his allied leaders and promised them offices of high ranking in the new world. The only stipulation was when the war was over they were to kill Mussolini and the African leaders.
4. The ME 262 was created and funded by a non-military company, when presented to Germany for the contract, Hitler was excited, quickly he signed a contract. ME-262 took an additional 2 years to enter production because of the limited amount of munitions that could handle that speed and manuverability. Those two years were spent making weapons that would utilize the plan to its max capability.
5. Blitzkrieg (Lightning Strike) was the perfect military attack. Use bomber to attack the city and before the dust settles march troops in. The reason that Hitler could not take England. To set up a blitkrieg troops had to be shuttled across the channel and landed on the beach. A limited number of troop transports were obtainned for this attack. The British caught wind of it and marched to the beach. The British stayed on a cliff and just was able to massacre the germans. Unfortunatly, no matter how much they were prepared for the attack, the Luftwaffe was still able to bomb areas of England back in time.
6. Hitler failed in Russia due to changing the aircraft engines from air cooled to water cooled. With air cooled aircraft in those cold frigid temperatures the engines would lock up and planes feel out of the sky. No Blitzkrieg, so hitler could never get farther into Russia.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Jeez, there are a lot of bad opinions above ! Bad grammar and writing as well.... Punctuate !!!
Everyone has opinions, but some of them dont wash.......
1.) I watched a documentary about Hitler's physician. They found his old medical logs and they concluded that for the duration of the war, he was administered medication similar to'speed'. This could explains the outbursts of rage, euphoria, depressions (vicious cycle) the belief he was indestructuble, the ideas that a magic solution would be found to win the war, even when things were looking dire. This would also have had a major effect on his decision making and how he carried on until the bitter end.
I guess this answers why some of his decision making was seen as 'mad' (against everyone's better judgement). Imagine if he had been clear off mind, had let his generals run the military machine, put people like Adolph Galland in charge of the Luftwaffe and Rommel/ Guderian / Kesslering (i.e. the Old Guard) of the Wehrmacht and the SS. Too often, his cronies manoevred for their political good, rather than unity of purpose.
Yes, he 'erred' with regards to the BEF....that was a major 'let off the hook' for the forces who would later be sent to North Africa, Sicliy, Italy and Normandy
He could have supplied hundreds more U-Boats to put the strangle hold on UK for the vital supplies coming from the US...they didnt know how close they got to strangling the supply routes in 42/43.
We all know how good the German industry has been, but they missed out on two simple designs. Heavy bomber (to rival Lancaster and B-17) ... and a tank that was as tough as the Tiger, as simple to maintain as the T-13 and in the numbers of the Sherman. Too often guilty of making excellent machnes, but too complicated and in insufficient numbers to make a strategic impact.
He also didnt learn from history. He knew what happened to Napoleon, but thought he could do the job quicker and in time. Ideally, waiting until April of 1942 would have been the best time and as someone righly said, North Africa could have been taken, then the Middle East and the strategic oil fields. His Generals urged him to take Moscow first (they got to within sight of the Kremlin), but he changed the objective....and the rest they say is history.
Luckily for us (although 60 million lives is beyond comprehension), he ran his country like an out of control tyrant, only listening to those inthe inner circle who were fighting for power until the end. Hard to believe that both Himmler and Goering tried to make peace with the Allies behind Hitler's back, all totally ignorant that the world would judge every Nazi in power.....
this is my idea why the krauts lost (yes its me loup) any 1 doesnt agree just yell so i can answer
