How Hitler Could Have Won World War II

by Bevin Alexander

  p. 197: “the Allies invaded Sardinia.” Liddell Hart, Second World War, 437–38.

  p. 199: “‘surrenders were frequent.’” Ibid., 442.

  p. 200: “‘on that goddamn beach.’” Kimball, 226. Churchill went ahead with a British-only effort to seize the Dodecanese Islands. The Germans beat the British to the islands, and the British failed badly, losing 4,500 men, 21 warships, and 113 aircraft. See ibid., 226–27; Michael W. Parish, Aegean Adventures 1940–1943 and the End of Churchill’s Dream (Sussex, England: The Book Guild, 1993).

  p. 201: “Badoglio announced surrender.” Liddell Hart, The Other Side of the Hill, 356–57.

  p. 203: “delivered him from disgrace.” Blumenson, Patton, 209–18; Eisenhower, 179–83; Bradley, 160–62, 229; Bradley and Blair, 195–98, 201–2, 206–7, 218.

  Chapter 19: The Citadel Disaster

  p. 204: “and fighting troops.” Manstein, 443.

  p. 204: “‘strongest fortress in the world.’” Mellenthin, 217.

  p. 204: “mobilizing millions more.” Dahms, 439–40.

  p. 205: “‘begging to be sliced off.’” Manstein, 445.

  p. 205: “‘on the Black Sea.’” Ibid., 446.

  p. 205: “they needed to prepare.” The original Tiger was a 56-ton machine mounting a high-velocity 88-millimeter cannon and 100 millimeters of armor, with a range of 87 miles. The 1944 model was several tons heavier with a slighter, longer range and shell-deflecting sloped sides on the turret like the Russian T-34. The Panther was first used in the Kursk battle. It was six tons lighter than the Tiger. It originally mounted an 88-millimeter gun, but later a 75-millimeter high-velocity cannon. Its range was 124 miles and it had 110-millimeter turret armor and 80-millimeter hull armor. Both were formidable weapons, and the Tiger was the best tank to come out of World War II.

  p. 207: “‘my stomach turns over.’” Guderian, 306–9.

  p. 207: “and 5,100 tanks.” Dahms, 442.

  p. 208: “SS Panzer Corps.” The SS (Schutzstaffel, or protective staff) began in 1925 as Hitler’s bodyguard, and under Heinrich Himmler expanded into many fields: intelligence (Sicherheitsdienst or SD); concentration camp guards; police, including the Geheime Staatspolizei (Gestapo or secret police); rulers of occupied territories; and the Waffen-SS or armed SS, which totaled 50,000 men in 1939 and 910,000 in 39 divisions in autumn 1944. SS divisions and corps were integrated into the Wehrmacht chain of command, and were generally directed by senior army generals. The Waffen-SS originally required volunteers to be of racially “pure Aryan” stock, but this provision disappeared in the late stages of the war. Although Waffen-SS units developed into effective fighting organizations, they were responsible for many atrocities, and were known for routine brutality. See Zabecki, vol. 1, 759–63 (Jon Moulton); 782–84 (Samuel J. Doss).

  p. 209: “losses were often heavy.” Mellenthin, 230–31. After Citadel, the Germans abandoned the Panzerkeil for the Panzerglocke, or tank bell. Superheavy tanks went to the center of the bell, medium tanks left and right, and light tanks behind ready for pursuit. The commander traveled behind the leading medium tanks, in radio contact with fighter-bombers, while engineers in armored vehicles just behind forward tanks were ready to clear gaps through minefields.

  p. 209: “‘quail-shooting with cannons.’” Guderian, 311. At a demonstration on March 19, 1943, Guderian discovered the fatal flaw in Porsche’s Tigers, but since Hitler was enthusiastic, Guderian had to use them. At this same event, Hitler and Guderian saw new armor plate “aprons” for the Mark III and IV panzers. These aprons or skirts hung loose about the flanks and rear of the tanks to cause antitank shells to detonate prematurely and not penetrate the main tank armor. The innovation was highly effective, leading the Russians to produce larger, high-velocity antitank guns and main tank guns. The T-34 gun was raised from 76 millimeters to 85 millimeters. See ibid.; Glanz and House, 162. p. 212: “the size of its own.” Manstein, 457.

  Chapter 20: The Assault on Italy

  p. 214: “Rome into Allied hands.” Liddell Hart, Other Side of the Hill, 361–65.

  p. 215: “forty self-propelled assault guns.” Mark Clark in his memoirs, Calculated Risk, wrote the Germans probably had “about six hundred tanks at Salerno.” See Clark, 199.

  p. 218: “‘obtain tactical surprise.’” Linklater, 63.

  p. 219: “ready to evacuate 6th Corps.” Cunningham, 569; Liddell Hart, Second World War, 463.

  p. 221: “with John P. Lucas.” Eisenhower, 188.

  p. 221: “obvious a place of landing.” Liddell Hart, Second World War, 469.

  p. 223: “attacks on enemy positions.” Doubler, 13–21.

  p. 225: “‘tactical move of my opponent.’” Liddell Hart, Other Side of the Hill, 364.

  p. 227: “‘was a stranded whale.’” Churchill, Second World War, Closing the Ring. 488.

  p. 228: “attack on Cassino had failed.” Ibid., 500.

  p. 229: “‘hours of such terrific hammering.’” Ibid., 506.

  p. 230: “‘have been disastrous.’” Ibid., 429.

  Chapter 21: Normandy

  p. 233: “‘once it had been recognized.’” Guderian, 328.

  p. 233: “the other south of Paris.” An eleventh division, 19th Panzer, was in southern Holland and would not be used unless the Allies invaded the Low Countries.

  p. 234: “‘at any other point.’” Guderian, 329.

  p. 234: “‘handling large ships.’” Ibid., 331; Rommel, 453. Another factor pointed to the Pas de Calais: Hitler’s new revenge weapons, the V-1 unmanned jet bombers or cruise missiles, and the V-2 rocket-propelled ballistic missiles, were coming on line. The Allies were aware of them, and knew, because their range was limited, they had to be launched from around the Pas de Calais. The Germans believed the Allies would invade there to knock out the launch sites as quickly as possible.

  p. 234: “commander of the Panzer Lehr Division.” Rommel, 468.

  p. 235: “extended to Normandy.” Ibid., 454.

  p. 237: “along the Norman coast.” Liddell Hart, Other Side of the Hill, 391–92; Shulman, 112.

  p. 237: “further disorder and war.” Kimball, 238.

  p. 238: “‘going to command Overlord.’” Eisenhower, 207.

  p. 238: “‘his difficult subordinates.’” Hastings, Overlord, 29.

  p. 239: “an American company’s 21,000.” Ibid., 34–35, 46.

  p. 239: “work began apace.” Churchill, Second World War, Closing the Ring, 72–76, 586–87; Eisenhower, 234–35.

  p. 240: “especially the Pas de Calais.” Eisenhower, 221–23, 225–29, 232–33; Bradley and Blair, 229–30.

  p. 240: “fighters, now being introduced.” Liddell Hart, Second World War, 606–12.

  p. 241: “in the west—inevitable.” D’Este, 76.

  p. 241: “upon weather forecasts.” Eisenhower, 239.

  p. 242: “assault ever attempted.” Ibid., 249.

  p. 249: “among them three sets of brothers.” Man, 46–48.

  p. 250: “‘and burn furiously.’” Ibid., 52–54.

  p. 250: “‘get the hell out of here.’” Bradley and Blair, 251.

  p. 251: “were at last released.” Liddell Hart, Other Side of the Hill, 405; Rommel, 474.

  p. 253: “by all its formations.” Rommel, 483; D’Este, 148, 162–63.

  p. 253: “ballistic missiles.” The V-1 had a range of 140 miles, a speed of 350 mph, an 1,800-pound warhead, and was accurate only within an eight-mile radius. Although the Germans launched 9,200 against England, antiaircraft fire and fighters destroyed 4,600. The V-2 had a range of 200 miles, a 2,200-pound warhead, and was less accurate than the V-1. However, it flew at 2,200 mph, beyond the speed of sound, and gave no warning. The Germans fired 1,300 V-2s against thirteen British cities. Later the Germans fired V-1s and V-2s against targets on the continent. The V-1s killed a total of 7,800 people and injured 44,400. The V-2s killed 4,100 and injured 8,400. See Zabecki, vol. 2, 1054–57 (Jonathan B. A. Bailey and Robert G.
Waite).

  p. 253: “wholly defensive operation.” Rommel, 474–78.

  Chapter 22: The Liberation of France

  p. 254: “talk with the Fuehrer.” Rommel, 479–80.

  p. 254: “most of them ill-trained.” Guderian, 334.

  p. 254: “against the Allies.” Although Germany produced more than a thousand Me-262s, few ever got into the sky due to the quick work of Allied air forces. They bombed the refineries producing the special fuel for the jets, easily spotted the extended runways required for them to take off, and destroyed the Me-262s on the ground. See Shirer, 1099.

  p. 255: “‘Make peace, you fools.’” Blumenson, Battle of the Generals, 100.

  p. 255: “Allied aircraft near Livarot.” Rommel, 485–86. Heinz Guderian wrote that on July 18, 1944, a Luftwaffe officer, whom he did not name, informed him that “Field Marshal von Kluge intended to arrange an armistice with the western powers without Hitler’s knowledge, and that with this object in view was proposing shortly to establish contact with the enemy.” See Guderian, 338.

  pp. 255–256: “‘grew increasingly violent.’” Guderian, 341–42.

  p. 256: “Rommel chose poison.” Rommel, 503–6.

  p. 256: “the British 2nd Army.” Bradley and Blair, 269.

  p. 257: “to deal with it.” Michael D.Doubler, Closing with the Enemy (Lawrence: Kansas U. Press, 1944).

  p. 257: “American casualties in Normandy.” Ibid, 37–38.

  p. 258: “soldiers out of the hedgerow.” Ibid., 49–52.

  p. 259: “equipped with the device.” Ibid., 46.

  p. 260: “‘cut down by splinters.’” Rommel, 489.

  p. 260: “Panzer Lehr virtually vanished.” Blumenson, Breakout and Pursuit, 240.

  p. 260: “30th Infantry Division, exulted.” Blumenson, Battle of the Generals, 145.

  p. 261: “‘power at critical moments.’” Ibid., 147.

  p. 262: “Mayenne, Laval, and Angers.” In a side action, the 5th Infantry Division of Walton Walker’s 20th Corps took both Angers and Nantes, thereby securing the Loire River line. Patton felt this operation was a diversion of strength, because there was little or no danger from Germans south of the Loire.

  p. 263: “alerted them to the attack.” Bradley and Blair, 291–92.

  p. 264: “‘pure utopia.’” Blumenson, Battle of the Generals, 193.

  p. 265: “Jacques Leclerc.” Leclerc was the wartime pseudonym of Philippe François Marie de Hautecloque, a regular army captain who joined de Gaulle in 1940. He traveled through Chad to Libya and assisted Montgomery’s army on the desert flank. He formed the 2nd Armored Division in North Africa in 1943 from assorted French and French Empire sources.

  p. 266: “‘toujours l’audace.’” Blumenson, Battle of the Generals, 216.

  p. 266: “‘go beyond Argentan.’” Bradley and Blair, 298.

  p. 266: “‘in the Canadian army.’” Ibid., 298.

  p. 266: “the Germans in a trap.” Blumenson, Battle of the Generals, 207.

  p. 268: “surrendered to the Americans.” Ibid., 227–28.

  p. 269: “‘triumphal march to Germany.’” Ibid., 238.

  p. 271: “a new defensive line.” An RAF study, published in 1945, and located in the early 1990s by Michel Dufresne, revealed that the Germans had 270,000 men in the Falaise pocket and on the roads to the Seine on August 19, 1944. Another 50,000 men were elsewhere west of the Seine. Of these 320,000 men, 80,000 were lost in the last twelve days of August, while 240,000 arrived at the Seine and crossed, plus 28,000 vehicles and several hundred tanks. The principal means were sixty ferry- and boat-crossing sites, and three pontoon bridges at Louviers, Elbeuf, and near Rouen. Some crossed in small boats and rafts. The bulk of the crossings occurred at night. By September 1, all the Germans were across. See ibid., 259. Allied losses in the Normandy campaign were 200,000, two-thirds of them American. Bradley listed German losses at 500,000, but actual losses were probably about those of the Allies. German records showed total casualties in the west from June 1 to August 31 were 294,000. See Bradley and Blair, 304; Mellenthin, 283.

  p. 271: “‘don’t see it.’” Blumenson, Battle of the Generals, 255.

  p. 272: “Is Paris burning?” Blumenson, The Duel for France, 360–61.

  p. 272: “‘into Paris on August 25.’” Bradley and Blair, 309. A small French force, aided by civilians who hastily removed barricades, pushed through side streets from the south and actually reached the Hôtel de Ville shortly before midnight on August 24. See Blumenson, The Duel for France, 355.

  p. 272: “‘back alleys, brothels, and bistros.’” Ibid., 359–66; Bradley and Blair, 309.

  p. 273: “advance toward the Saar.” Only half of Patton’s army (two corps, Eddy’s 12th and Walker’s 20th) was available for immediate movement eastward. Troy Middleton’s 8th Corps was still in Brittany, and Haislip’s 15th Corps was deploying from Mantes. As a sop to Bradley, Montgomery got “operational coordination” of Hodges’s army, but not “operational direction,” which in theory remained with Bradley. See Bradley and Blair, 315, 318, 325.

  p. 273: “‘such an opportunity.’” Liddell Hart, Second World War, 558.

  p. 274: “‘if you’ll keep 3rd Army moving.’” Ibid., 562.

  p. 274: “‘into Germany almost unhindered.’” Westphal, 172–74.

  p. 274: “forces on the front.” Liddell Hart, Other Side of the Hill, 428.

  p. 274: “avoid being killed.” Liddell Hart, Second World War, 567; Bradley and Blair, 319.

  p. 275: “the end of August.” Bradley wrote that the Americans began running out of gasoline on or about September 1. See Bradley and Blair, 321.

  Chapter 23: The Battle of the Bulge

  p. 276: “‘the objective Antwerp.’” Cole, The Ardennes, 2; MacDonald, 11. Another source for the battle is John S. D. Eisenhower, The Bitter Woods: The Battle of the Bulge (New York: Putnam, 1969; reprint New York: Da Capo, 1995).

  p. 277: “‘the German officers corps.’” MacDonald, 21.

  p. 278: “‘worth his while.’” Bradley, 454.

  p. 280: “‘passed me on.’” Ibid., 467–69.

  p. 280: “‘was really practicable.’” Liddell Hart, Other Side of the Hill, 447.

  p. 281: “mount an offensive.” MacDonald, 79.

  p. 281: “‘sonuvabitch gotten all his strength?’” Bradley, 466.

  p. 281: “he held in reserve.” Eisenhower, 342.

  p. 285: “massacring eighty-six American prisoners.” On July 11, 1946, an American war crimes court convicted Peiper, Sepp Dietrich, and seventy-one other defendants, all former SS officers or soldiers. Peiper and forty-two others were sentenced to death. In time, attitudes changed due to a political climate more favorable to the Germans and the admission by the American prosecution that it had gained confessions by using hoods (as if the questioner was to be executed), false witnesses, and mock trials. None of the guilty were executed. All were ultimately paroled: Sepp Dietrich in 1955 and Peiper just before Christmas 1956. Peiper found Germany hostile to him, however, and moved to a village in Alsace. In the summer of 1976, two weeks after a sensational article about him appeared in the French newspaper L’Humanité, firebombs destroyed Peiper’s house and killed the sixty-year-old former SS commander. See MacDonald, 216–23, 620–23.

  p. 285: “help of ‘artificial moonlight.’” Liddell Hart, Other Side of the Hill, 459.

  p. 287: “‘Christ come to cleanse the temple.’” Bradley and Blair, 365.

  p. 287: “‘drive like hell.’” Bradley and Blair, 365–67; MacDonald, 514–21; Liddell Hart, Second World War, 656–57; Montgomery, 275–82.

  p. 288: “‘Go to hell!’” MacDonald, 511–13.

  p. 288: “‘when they were needed.’” Liddell Hart, Other Side of the Hill, 463.

  p. 289: “lost a thousand aircraft.” MacDonald, 618.

  Chapter 24: The Last Days

  p. 290: “‘all this rubbish?’” Guderian, 382–83.

  p. 291:
“‘with what it’s got.’” Ibid., 387–88.

  p. 293: “change Hitler’s mind.” Ibid., 393.

  p. 293: “‘views on their superiors.’” Ibid., 397.

  p. 294: “accused Guderian of treason.” Ibid., 401–2, 404–5.

  p. 294: “all the more difficult.” On February 4–11, 1945, Roosevelt, Churchill, and Stalin met at Yalta, a resort on the Crimean peninsula. With victory only months away, the sole topic was the postwar world, especially eastern Europe. Stalin insisted on an eastern frontier of Poland approximating the line dividing German and Soviet occupation zones after the defeat of Poland in 1939. To compensate, the three Allied leaders agreed to extend Poland’s boundaries westward at the expense of Germany. The result established Germany’s eastern frontier along the Oder and Neisse rivers, giving Poland Silesia, Pomerania, and southern East Prussia (Russia took over northern East Prussia, including Königsberg). Stalin also backed a Polish government set up by himself (the Lublin government). The western Allies supported the Polish government in exile in London, but, since Russia occupied Poland, could do little to advance its cause. See Zabecki, vol. 1, 50–51 (Philip Green); Kimball, 308–18.

  p. 294: “‘I can’t bear that.’” Guderian, 407; Shirer, 1097.

  p. 296: “‘doesn’t fit the plan.’” Bradley and Blair, 405–7.

  p. 297: “did not take place.” Shirer, 1103–5; Guderian, 422–24.

  p. 298: “Eisenhower wrote.” Eisenhower, 396–97.

  p. 299: “defense of the city.” Shirer, 1113.

  p. 301: “‘be burned immediately.’” Ibid., 1123–27.

  p. 302: “shot himself in the mouth.” There is some evidence that Hitler bit down on a cyanide capsule and almost simultaneously fired a bullet through his head. See Rosenbaum, 79–80.

  Selected Bibliography

  Addington, Larry. The Blitzkrieg Era and the German General Staff. New Brunswick, N.J.: Rutgers University Press, 1971.