They could not have won. Their army and their “reich” collapsed the moment they suffered a major defeat. The Soviet Union by comparison suffered horrific defeats and losses in the early stages of the eastern front and the nation rallied back and won the war. Why couldn’t the Germans do this? Because their “reich” was nothing more than plundering Europe, and it fell apart when it encountered its first test of resilience. The thousands of miles of captured territory was quickly lost despite plenty of opportunities to build and create contingencies in the event their offensives failed. They didn’t do it. They didn’t have a back up plan, or a way to transition their military into fighting a war of attrition.
The militant fascism required them to invade everything and everyone as quickly as possible. To try to fabricate a scenario where the Nazis made smart and long-term war winning decisions is to effectively make them not Nazis to begin with. You can argue that they may have had more success if Rommel was given command of everything but he never would have been able to create the political movement that gave him the tools in the first place. To speculate further is to create an alternate history scenario where everything went perfect for the Nazis and they had a dramatic regime and ideology change in the midst of their conquests.
Victory for the Nazis was total domination and nothing else. Conquering and holding Europe alone would never have been seen as “winning the war”, at least as far as they were concerned.
The argument can be made that any military force could have won if they just made no mistakes and got lucky everywhere they needed to. Despite having most of the cards in their favor early on, they lost. That isn’t a reflection of how close they were to victory, but how fragile their victories had been.
They could not have won. Their army and their “reich” collapsed the moment they suffered a major defeat. The Soviet Union by comparison suffered horrific defeats and losses in the early stages of the eastern front and the nation rallied back and won the war. Why couldn’t the Germans do this? Because their “reich” was nothing more than plundering Europe, and it fell apart when it encountered its first test of resilience. The thousands of miles of captured territory was quickly lost despite plenty of opportunities to build and create contingencies in the event their offensives failed. They didn’t do it. They didn’t have a back up plan, or a way to transition their military into fighting a war of attrition.
The militant fascism required them to invade everything and everyone as quickly as possible. To try to fabricate a scenario where the Nazis made smart and long-term war winning decisions is to effectively make them not Nazis to begin with. You can argue that they may have had more success if Rommel was given command of everything but he never would have been able to create the political movement that gave him the tools in the first place. To speculate further is to create an alternate history scenario where everything went perfect for the Nazis and they had a dramatic regime and ideology change in the midst of their conquests.
Victory for the Nazis was total domination and nothing else. Conquering and holding Europe alone would never have been seen as “winning the war”, at least as far as they were concerned.
The argument can be made that any military force could have won if they just made no mistakes and got lucky everywhere they needed to. Despite having most of the cards in their favor early on, they lost. That isn’t a reflection of how close they were to victory, but how fragile their victories had been.