ArchivesWhat if the United States never entered the WWII?
Quiet honestly, I like “What If…” discussions. A week ago, I was talking with friend of mine about an impact of Allied Forces on the outcome of the WWII. Inevitably for such topic, we came to “What if” scenarios with one major question: What if the United States did not enter the WWII?
I can’t really describe all intensity that surrounded our discussion. And maybe precisely because of it, when we were done arguing, I decided to see what opinions and scenarios exist on the Web. And here are some “What if” versions in regard to our question.
Version 1
Germany fought AGAINST the Soviet Union.
America fought FOR the Soviet Union.
Yet most people here seem to think that IF the USA had kept out of the war, then the Soviet Union would have conquered even MORE TERRITORY than it did WITH US aid?
The USSR had manpower and a huge armory. They did NOT have enough trucks, medicine or even BOOTS until the USA sent them MASSIVE quantities.
Without US aid, the UK would have LOST the U-Boat war. (American naval might and esp. naval AIR POWER defeated U-boats.) The UK would have starved and been forced to make peace; ironically, Hitler NEVER wanted to destroy the British Empire. He hoped for it as a natural ally!)
Without the two front wars, time would have turned IN FAVOR of Germany. No western front means holding out longer in the east. That means the new u-boats and jets (ALREADY EXISTING in spring 1945) could have been produced in sufficient quantity to turn the tide in the east.
Version 2
A lot of this depends on if Japan attacked the US in the Pacific, if not then I doubt there would have any war in the Pacific other than Japan trying to expand ’slightly’ into Asia.
Eagle and Bob, I suspect you are missing the point that the Russians effectively won the European WW2, it doesn’t actually matter what you think about boots and ambulances, the Russian steamroller relies on millions of Russian men, their logistic support is to throw them some potatoes, they broke the back of the Germans on the eastern front before the US joined the war, yes the aid that was supplied was good, but try reading ‘Stalingrad’ the US supplies were nothing more than a novelty to most of the Soviets.
The Nazi’s were also hamstrung because much of their air force was wiped out in the Battle of Britain, the idea that Britain would have been taken by the Germans is wrong, the Germans gave up in 1940, and committed themselves to the east in late 1940. The British had air superiority over the Channel, and the Germans had no amphibious capability.
The question of sea power and U-boats is an interesting one, the US contribution was vital, but even if it hadn’t been there the Brits and Canadians were already developing Radar based air escort systems by the time the US really got into it, but yes it would have had a draining effect on the UK.
However the Russians would have carried on to the Atlantic, maybe by 1946, but they would have got there. The British Empire would fight back in Africa (as it did) and maybe a vast army would be raised in India, but it wouldn’t have anywhere to go. The danger is that the Soviets own continental Europe and Northern Asia, Maybe they would turn their sights on the UK and another war breaks out, the UK would soon lose to a mighty Russia….
Maybe Russia turns its sights to the Middle East or Asia.
But would the US have developed nukes if there was no war…unlikely, the Brits might have got there first, maybe the Russians would have got it? They made a big point of capturing nuclear labs in Germany.
Undoubtedly the Germans would have been defeated, the US, more than anything though, contributed to pinning back the communists, and providing future security for Western Europe.
Version 3
I think if the United States had not gotten involved, Russia does not necessarily steamroll Europe.
Part of the reason for the Soviet Union’s success against the Nazis was that much of Germany’s resources were also directed to the West, to prevent a second front in Europe. Without American Intervention I think the Germans and Russians would have eventually come to peace terms after millions had died…. neither being able to totally destroy the other. I think it would have also ended with some territorial gains for the Nazis.(Estonia, Lithuania ect.) (Perhaps, including Belarus since Hitler planned to group it together with Baltic States. WW)
Britain would also be forced to sign a separate peace with Germany. I don’t think Britain would have lost any territory to them in the peace treaty, but they would have to recognize Germany as master of Europe proper.
Japan would have had mastery of the Pacific, and would have eventually conquered all of China.
Version 4
Barbarossa was failed in summer 1941, because Hitler planned to destroy Red army before September 1941. First UK/USA aid was send 12 august 1941, army received it in September. According Barbaroosa it already should be destroyed! So, without allies help war in Russia would be harder, but victorious for CCCP. May be in 1947 Berlin would be taken by Red Army.
There are 4 main features that could give Russia advantages superiority:
1.Climat and supplies: as was said, Germans planned to defeat Russia before winter and was not ready to -30C chills. And it is very difficult to supply 6 million army.
2.Popular front: especially partisans. 300000 fighters participated in centralized partisan armies, 700000 participated in resistance movement in occupied lands of USSR. European resistance and industrial sabotage.
3. Resource deficit. In 1942 Germans was confronted with lack of resources. Before invasion they received it buying in USSR: Caucasus oil, Siberian gas, Ural metals.
4. Growing experience of soviet generals. Do you know that first Stalin’s order of the war was order not to shoot? He thought that this is provocation. Then, when army should prepare defense positions he ordered to attack. In 1942, after victory under Moscow, he decided that now Red Army is stronger than Germans and ordered to attack again by all farces and recapture Kharkov - result: Southern front is broken and Red Army is retreating to Stalingrad and Northern Caucasus. In the second part of war (1943-45) soviet generals didn’t make mistakes like that.
These are just some theories and I am curious what do you think about it. Indeed, what if the United States never entered the WWII?
June 10th, 2006 at 6:10 pm
US was forced to enter WWII, for it’s being attacked by Japan. So I believe the question “What if US never helped to open second front?” is more appropriate here.
I believe it just would have gave Germany more time, take away probably more millions of lives, and change modern map slightly.
June 10th, 2006 at 11:27 pm
What if US never helped to open second front? Is quiet different question because here, we might strongly assert that back in 1944, Germans were practically done. Perhaps, it would have taken Soviets another 2 or 3 years to finish in Berlin. However, what if America had Never entered the war? What if they were never attacked by Japan?
June 15th, 2006 at 8:11 am
There are some conspiracy theorists that propose an idea of US allowing Pearl Harbor to happen so they can enter WWII…
June 15th, 2006 at 11:35 pm
Damn it, I have never heard about it before. Are there any facts that support it?
June 18th, 2006 at 8:28 pm
Why does US wanted to enter WWII??? What we’ve earned out of it? That just doesn’t make any sense…well at least to me…
July 4th, 2006 at 11:07 am
The idea that a Russian victory was inevitable is untenable. Even Stalin was not sure of victory until the second half of ‘43. The idea that the west’s contributions were negligable is false. There was never a time when at least 30-40% of German ground forces were not in the west. Germany built over 1,400 U-boats to try to protect itself in the West. each of about 750 tons. The bulk of the German fighter force was in the west as well as very large numbers of other aircraft. Over 1, 000,000 German’s were involved in air defense. 1,000’s of powerful cannons were held in Germany to try to stop the allied air offensive. Even though the air campaign did not destroy German war production it held down the rate of increase and eventually crippled German fuel production. Most of Germany’s high tech. research industry was involved in trying find some way to relieve the pressure from the western allies. Allied aid to Russia was more than just some boots and ambulances. It included thousands of plane’s and tanks. certainly the Russians produced plenty of their own, but this aid increased their edge. Aid also include locomotives, food, fuel, Vast numbers of trucks etc.
July 8th, 2006 at 7:47 pm
It’s hard to say what was Stalin thinking about. Yet I agree with you, David, that the aid to Russia was substantial, but I believe no one can say or prove that Russian victory was or was not inevitable. I tend to think that with what Germans were doing, it was quite unlikely that they would be ever be able to overtake Russia. With all that guerilla movement that they faced on the occupied territories, with production capabilities of USSR, with the nation that would rather die then be captured… Soviet’s propaganda thoroughly brainwashed peoples of exUSSR…
Another way of history to develop might be like, say, Germans overtake a good part of western territories of the USSR(maybe even up to Ural mountains) and then halted the war…probably for sometime…
I wonder how they were planing to control theirs future dominion?.. Any ideas/facts about this?
July 31st, 2006 at 1:40 pm
russia still lives strong!
August 27th, 2006 at 5:32 pm
1) US aid to the USSR indeed was substantial. But of the total amount, all of which — with the exception of some aircraft that were flown northwest across Canada, across Alaska and delivered in Siberia — had to travel by slowboat convoys across the Atlantic ocean to the ice-free north russian port of Murmansk. About midway through the war, by 1943, the US and USSR had jointly constructed a modern railroad line in Iran, north from the Persian gulf and through that country to the soviet border in the transcausian region.
The bulk of our aid came into Russia via that route, involving a long transit across the Atlantic, around Africa to the Persian gulf, and up a long rail connection to central Russia. All this meant that the bulk of the aid we delivered to the USSR starting coming at a time after which the strategic balance in the gigantic and continuous battles on the eastern front already had shifted to the soviet side.
In other words, the aid received by the Soviet Union from the USA certainly accelerated the schedule of the soviet victory over nazi Germany. But by the late July 1943, the axis forces had been cleared from north Africa; allied forces already had conquered Sicily; Mussolini was deposed and Italy — hitherto a major german ally — dropped out of the war; the battle of the Atlantic against Germany’s U-boat fleet had decisively turned in favor of the United Kingdom; in the far east, Japan’s aircraft carrier fleet had been smashed for more than a year and the Japanese had been the defensive against US navel and “island-hopping” advances for almost a year. And in south central Russia, the great battle of Kursk in early July 1943 sealed the doom of Hitler’s tank and motorized armies, a doom that had begun in the failed winter battles before Moscow in late 1941, had accelerated in the catastrophe at Stalingrad in late 1942 and early 1943, and was growing as allied air power began the destruction of Germany’s key war industries in daylight bombing and the incineration of entire cities such as Hamburg in night bombing with incindiery bombs.
2) Russia, despite that it fully utilized American-manufactured 2-1/2 ton trucks and jeeps in large numbers later in the war, along with use radio-communications gear, much of their rail transportation equipment, and supplemental foodstuffs for their military population, manufactured most of their own military armaments.
As a matter of fact, German military planners learned that most of these were far better suited than their own to combat conditions in Russia — especially in the inclement weather that prevailed there. For example, as early as July 1941, german panzer units near Smolensk came up against a unit of newly-mobilized T-34 tanks, regarded as the best all-around tank of the war on any front in World War II. German shells reportedly bounced off the sides of this new tank, while its 76mm armor piercing shells smashed the treads and much of the armor of the Mark IV panzers that were the backbone of the German armored forces at that time.
The same generalizations could be made about Soviet artillery, antitank guns, fighter and fighter-bomber aircraft and even their infantry machine guns. German weapons frequently were finely engineered examples of craftsmanship, but which would freeze up under winter conditions, or jammed stop firing after having been dropped in muddy water. Russian weapons were crudely and cheaply manufactured, but never jammed and operated in all Russian climate conditions.
The fact that the USSR still had an armaments manufacturing industry in 1942 and 1943 was itself one of Stalin’s secret weapons. Most of the prevwar soviet heavy industry was located in western Russia, the same areas that were about to be overrun by the german armies during June-October 1941.
But as early as late June, just days after operation Barbarossa was mounted, the decision was approved by the State Defense Committee of the USSR (Stalin and his top wartime key people) to evacuate as much as possible of the USSR’s manufacturing plants — and above all the military arsenals — far to the east in and behind the Ural mountains of western Siberia. Amid the chaos of battle, and in winter termperatures that were causing German troops outside Moscow to lose their combat capabilities — Russian workmen newly arrived at jerrybuilt factories in Siberia already were turning out tanks, aircraft, artillery, small arms and all else needed by modern armies, and these were being sent off immediately for use by the vast armies that the Soviets would arm and train in time to play their role in surrounding, trapping and breaking the german 6th army and 4th tank army in the cauldron of Stalingrad.
—
One must come to the conclusion that Hitler, his nazi regime and his admitedly large and modern armies, were all doomed that moment he took his fateful decision to invade Russia. There, for the first time, the german forces, although undeniably dynamic and powerful, ran up against a truly superior force, one that might indeed beat itself through ineptitude or executive indecision or mistake. But all told, Stalin was a far better generalissimo than his nazi counterpart, his resource base was infinitely greater than that of Germany, and in the test of four years of the most grueling and sustained combat in history, the russian nation proved more steadfast than their german counterpart. Their were, of course, few differences in the way their countries were led, both by bloody and vicious dictatorships. But historical hindsight shows that the soviet dictatorship was better organized than its nazi counterpart, and whereas Adolf Hitler kept repeating his tactical errors, especially after he had taken over day to day command of all the german armed forces, Josef Stalin never repeated any particular blunder, and after 1942, he wisely allowed his best generals to run the war effort.
My judgement from all the evidence is that Russia would have won her war against Germany regardless of US or British participation, although that participation greatly speeded up the destruction of Germany and its armed nazi leadership.
Moreover, it is evident that had the US, British and Canadian forces not landed in western France in June 1944, the soviet armies would have fought their way not only across all of Germany, but would have reached the english channel as well.
The question has been raised about a possible german armistice with the USSR in 1943. But that possibility does not take into account Hitler’s crazed racial philosophies or his equally crazed unwillingness to retreat his forces from any trap he had put them into. After Stalingrad, and certainly after Kursk, the Soviet leadership never would have made peace on any basis othr than removing all Germans from any part of Europe east of their 1941 starting line. This, Hitler would never have accepted, because he was still dreaming of non-existent forces and possible victories even as he awaited his suicide while he was trapped in his bunker deep under the earth in Berlin. And by mid-1943, Josef Stalin and his marshals knew that would crush Hitler and nazi Germany, regardless of anything the western allies did or did not do.
Arnold Harris
Mount Horeb WI
August 28th, 2006 at 7:53 pm
Arnold, it was a real pleasure to read your deep and extensive answer. Thank you very much!
September 1st, 2006 at 7:22 pm
Xela, there are scholars who publish historical research packages each of hundreds of pages, on topics such as I have attempted to examine, and who still have not adaquately covered all aspects of their topics.
Formerly, I was trained as a reporter a long time ago, and learned to shrink complex topics into 10-15 paragraph historical reviews. And on modern blogsites and discussion groups, that is about all that most commenters can muster the patience to read.
I therefore have to tell you that my answer posted above, in scholarly circles, would hardly quality as deep and extensive.
But thanks for the compliment.
Arnold Harris
Mount Horeb WI
September 4th, 2006 at 4:08 am
Here’s what i think, the red army was to big for the Germans to handle, the red would have push the Germans back even without the American on the west and italy front.
Here’s what i think would have happened after the war, the red army would have “liberated” Europe thus meaning the fowling countries France, demark, Norway, Italy, Holland grease would have turn communist
though i think we British would have got area occupation zone so west Germany would have been half its size,
it would have been a dark future.
September 8th, 2006 at 11:42 am
la France pourrait avoir gagné le ww2 ! est était ces anglais foutu qui nous a laissés vers le bas et a fonctionné !
September 19th, 2006 at 8:23 am
Arnold,
Personally I was delighted with the way you’ve described everything. Despite that your post was a bit long I wasn’t able to stop reading it. And we here are fare from any scholarly circles
Arnold would you be so kind to email me at xela@wrongways.com . I have a question to you.
Thank you!
October 7th, 2006 at 3:29 pm
me two i have always been fascinated by the alterative history that how i found this stile, normally I cannot read a long post as I cannot talk it all in. but Arnold I read all of it really fascinate me.
October 20th, 2006 at 12:40 pm
Arnold Harris’ analysis, 27 August 2006, is one of the
most fascinating bits of writing I have read in some
time (anyone who has not yet read it should scroll up
and read it now). It offers much substance to agree or
disagree with.
I am not sure that Arnold’s conclusion is correct,
however. His analysis is essentially linear, and I
doubt whether it takes into adequate account two
critical wildcard factors on the German side: German
superweapon development; and Hitler’s growing madness.
German superweapon development poses one of the great
unanswerable questions of history: what would have
happened if the Germans had been free to put jets and
rockets into full-scale production before Germany’s
heavy industry was ruined by U.S. and British bombing?
What would have happened if the jets and rockets had
bought the Germans enough time in 1945 to complete
development of a nuke in 1946? Would the U.S. have
given sufficient priority to the Manhattan Project if
not at war with Germany?
The last question is probably the most answerable. The
U.S. was at war with Japan, which was probably
sufficient incentive to keep the Manhattan Project on
schedule for 1945. However, it does not follow that an
America not actually at war with Germany would have used
the Bomb on Berlin in time to stop the Germans from
achieving their own Bomb and using it on Moscow.
Regarding German jets in 1945, U.S. and British pilots
reported the jets to be so fast that the jets could
essentially ignore the presence of Allied fighter
escorts; they represented an improvement in air
technology comparable in magnitude and effect to the
improvement in naval technology the ironside had
represented over the wooden warship, eighty years
before. The jet essentially obsoleted all Allied air
forces at one stroke. What saved the Allies was that
the Germans were never actually able to put their jets
in the air in significant numbers before the Allies had
bombed the German jet and jet-fuel plants, the
extra-long German jet runways, and even some of the few
jets themselves, parked on the ground. Give the Germans
adequate jet cover, and it leaves them free in 1945 and
1946 to manufacture at full capacity at home, more or
less unmolested.
Regarding the German rockets: Hitler thought them pretty
neat and they gave the British quite a scare, but they
were primitive and in retrospect it is hard to argue
that they really mattered much in the context of
1945-46. The rocket simply was ahead of its time in
those years. It was the jet that really mattered.
Turning now to the other matter, Hitler’s growing
madness: No one will ever know, for sure, to what
degree the Nazi dictator was actually losing his mind in
the 1942-45 time period, or what practical effect this
had on German victory chances. We know that Hitler’s
personal physician Dr. Morell was giving Hitler some
strange injections, and that Hitler’s behavior changed
significantly during this time; but what connection the
injections or native madness had on the momentous
decisions of Hitler’s last years can only be supposed
and disputed. What is not much disputed, however, is
that it was Hitler’s fanaticism and his new, emerging
inability to understand basic balance-of-forces and
supply-line concepts which led to the wholly avoidable
German disaster at Stalingrad, and to the partly
avoidable German disaster in Normandy. The bold but
more balanced Hitler who presided over the conquest of
France in 1940 never would have let Germany suffer
Stalingrad in 1942, or the subsequent disasters in the
Ukraine in 1943 — and he probably still would have
succeeded in closing the Volga to Russian shipping,
which after all was the point of Stalingrad. Keep in
mind that the Germans had still power after Stalingrad
and Normandy to mount the Battle of the Bulge in late
1944, only after which was Germany really finished.
Then there is the uncertainty that Hitler himself would
have survived 1945. His own Germans narrowly missed
assassinating him several times. They might eventually
have got him. Goering, an evil character but not the
visionary madman Hitler was, might then have been able
as Fuehrer to stabilize the German position long enough
to get the crucial squadrons of German jets into the
skies, had the U.S. never entered the war. Alternately,
the new German leader might even have been a non-Nazi
like Beck. What would have happened then? Civil war?
Armistice? Consolidation of German conquests? It is
hard to say.
And then there is the fact that without the American war
effort, Patton never would have landed in Sicily, and
Italy would presumably have remained in the war, at
least relieving the Germans’ southern flank. Also,
there would have been no Normandy landing in 1944,
keeping Vichy France nominally on the German side at
least one more year, probably longer. Such relief might
have allowed the Germans the additional strength they
needed to defend the Ukrainian wheatfields and to take
and hold the Caucasus oilfields (although the mad Hitler
might well have thrown such advantages away anyway; it
makes one wonder how history might have changed had only
the quack Dr. Morell been hit by a bus in 1937).
What probably was indeed more or less inevitable was
U.S. aid to Russia. Cancelling America’s 1941 entry
into the European war probably would not have cancelled
the Russian aid. But the Germans may have had enough to
defeat the Russians nevertheless — besides which, some
have argued here that U.S. aid to Russia was not
critical to the Russian war effort in any case. I am
not sure, but that may be right.
If, if, if. Well, I think that all these “ifs” are
pretty plausible. The U.S. smashes Japan, sure, but
Germany nukes Moscow in 1946 and forces Britain to sue
for peace, which by Mein Kampf’s standard means that
Germany wins the war. Maybe a sick Hitler passes away
in 1947, leaving the more cautious Goering in charge of
the German state (or Himmler? that’s another matter;
here, let’s assume Goering). Britain tests its own nuke
in 1949, and a cold war ensues, rather different than
the Cold War which happened in actual history, given the
close linguistic, cultural, royal, racial and historical
links between Britain and Germany, and given the
inherent lack of appeal the Nazi ideology would have had
to the communist peasantry of the 1960s’ third world.
All this was entirely possible, I would suggest. It
just never happened in actual history, because Hitler,
distracted momentarily by the news of Pearl Harbor from
the unpleasant task of directing the winter battle at
the gates of Moscow, made in December 1941 the unwise
decision to honor his alliance with Japan, declaring war
on the United States. “Those whom God would destroy,
He first maketh mad,” said Euripides. Cancel just that
one decision of Hitler’s — let Hitler appease the
United States a while, delaying if not preventing U.S.
entry into the European war — and history might indeed
have taken a dramatically different turn.