When I’m travelling, as I have been for several days, I don’t always have the time to review everything going on here. I tend to look for complaints from other participants and go from there. You seemed to have touched off a mini-flame war on on the Space Board (which was self-corrected by some – thanks). Hence my comment.

You’ve a history here of sparking some pretty nasty threads, with a fair amount of resulting casualties. Years ago, after your most infamous post, I called for your banning. I have not forgetten that. I may not be as forgiving as Robert if you step out of bounds.

EDIT: I wouldn’t act unilaterally, it would be put to a vote of the community.

Also, I never said anything about the Soviets invading the US – Stalin was stupid, but not THAT stupid. I did, however, make the point that Germany would have focused more of it’s efforts on the US if they did win, resulting in something similar to the Cold War possibly. They DID land some attacks on the mainland US, as did Japan, but that’s the sort of thing the history books like to skim over.

Your comments about the battle of Britain are spot on. The RAF was on the ropes when Hitler ordered a switch from the bombing of their airfields to London. Had he actually listened to General Kesselring, the air campaign would’ve begun in June as the fighting in France was being wrapped up, with a cross channel invasion in July. It wouldn’t have been pretty but it was possible, and the English had no beach defenses at all during the early summer of 1940. A landing around Dover would’ve forced the RAF to abandon their bases in SE England which would’ve given the Luftwaffe complete control of the skies over the Channel. Since navel ships didn’t have much in the way of AA defenses then, the Royal Navy would’ve been sitting ducks had they moved into the channel to disrupt German invasion craft.

Kesselring’s plan called for the jump from Calais to Dover along a narrow corridor which was to be heavily mined on both sides, and covered by long range heavy land artillery and Luftwaffe ground attack aircraft. Once the RAF had been pushed back from the coast, much of the supplies would be flown over at night by Ju-52s using the beaches as landing strips. His hope was to force a British ceasefire after they saw a large German force on their soil. IMO, Kesselring was one of Germany’s finest officers and easily on par with Guderian and Rommel. His plan was gutsy and had a good chance of success, but Hitler didn’t have the stomach for such risks.

The Nazis only had a dozen years in power; had they not been stopped by the rest of the world, they’d have likely murdered millions more than they did.

Germany’s location became the Nazi’s curse; they couldn’t expand without causing havoc and death in western Europe. The Superior Race was doomed when, ironically enough, it pissed off the white man (who had invested much time and energy devising ways to kill those who piss him off).

Blunder I:

IMO Hitler lost the war with multiple blunders early on. He was winning the battle of Britain when he switched his tactics from destroying the RAF to terror bombing. The Brits may have egged him into this by their night bombing of German cities.

If he had destroyed the ability of the RAF to resist, he would have gotten his much wanted armistice with Britain. That would have kept USA out of the war.

Blunder II:

By allowing Japan to attack Pearl Harbor and assert their power toward Southern Asia, Russia felt free to reinforce their Western front with troops from the East. If Japan could have been cajoled to pin those forces in the East, Germany would probably have beaten Russia in spite of their tactical blunders.

Bottom line Hitler was a bit too ambitious and put himself in a position to lose in many different ways.

Also? Everything bad in Russia can either be blamed on Stalin/Czars/US or any combination of the three. Not saying they’re angels – they did take over a large portion of Europe, and came DANGEROUSLY close to joining the Axis – but they did have their reasons for hating Germany.

As for “winners write the history”, I can think of no better example of this than the US. Just take a look at any point in our history, and you’ll see what I mean.

What pisses me off most here is this attitude that “so what if Nazi Germany won the war?” Tell that to any holocaust survivors face. Tell that to a veterans face. I dare you. Also? We were a participant in that war. Something tells me the mad Führer wouldn’t have quit his new war with the US so easily. US military forces were a major aide in the war in Europe, and without them, Fortress Europe probably would become a reality. Think what their next action would have been.

Rutger Hauer did a movie called “Fatherland,” which took place in a 1960s world where Germany had won in Europe, although nowhere else, and had basically completely covered up the Holocaust, even from its own citizens. It’s a well-done mystery (I saw it years ago), with Hauer playing a Reich policeman digging out the truth.

Another point he has: we really don’t have a lot of trouble dealing with China, which has killed something like forty million of its own people.