WORLD WAR II BUFFET 15 OCTOBER 2020 KEY FACTORS AND ISSUES - - PowerPoint PPT Presentation

WORLD WAR II BUFFET

15 OCTOBER 2020 KEY FACTORS AND ISSUES

• Dr. Joe Fitzharris

Professor Emeritus of History The University of St. Thomas

OVERVIEW

• HITLER’S DECISION TO RESCUE THE ITALIANS IN THE

BALKANS AND DELAY OPERATION BARBAROSSA

• GERMAN DECLARATION OF WAR AGAINST US
• THE US’S 90 DIVISION GAMBLE
• MONTGROMERY’S ARNHEM OFFENSIVE
• HITLER’S DECISION TO CONTINUE THE “FINAL

SOLUTION” AT MAXIMU EFFORT

Our Questions

• What happened when and by whom
• Why did it happen
• What was/were the expected outcome/s?
• Were there alternatives?
• What was/were the actual outcome/s?

HITLER’S DECISION TO RESCUE THE ITALIANS IN THE BALKANS AND DELAY OPERATION BARBAROSSA

THE BALKANS CAMPAIGN IMPACTS BARBAROSSA

• Germany wanted peace to ensure Romanian oil, raw

materials, and foodstuffs flowed up the Danube to Germany

• Operation SEA LION postponed (Sept 40) when Luftwaffe

failed to win the “Battle of Britain” allowed shift to eastern problem

• Führer Directive 21 - order for the invasion of the USSR

(Dec 40)

• Afrika Korps diverted resources (Feb 41- May 43) from

Barbarossa

Mussolini gave Hitler a “Surprise”

• October 1940 Italy aded Greece

through Albania

• Germany needed to protect the

Danube supply line - hence aid Italy in Greece

• Necessitated arrangements with
• Yugoslavia. Regent Prince Paul,

who joined the Tripartite Pact, was overthrown in a coup d’état

• n 26 Mar 41 by Serbian
• fficers.
• Hitler saw this as Serbs again

being problematic and chose to crush Yugoslavia at same time

OPERATION MARITA

• Italians invaded in October 40
• Greeks counter-attacked

successfully driving the Italians back to their start line on the Greece-Albania border in March 41

• 6 April 41 German forces invade

through Bulgaria opening a second front

• Small British-ANZAC force

hindered advance but was forced to surrender 30 Apr

• OPERATION MERKUR followed

in May 41

OPERATION 25

• 10 days to prepare
• Operation PUNISHMENT
• verwhelming air assault
• n Belgrade 6-10 April
• Ground attacks began 6

Apr - seizure of bridges

• ver Danube.
• 12 days to completion.
• Guerrilla and partisan

warfare began soon after.

EXPECTED

• Remove threats to Danube supply line
• Protect Balkans resources
• Secure southern flank (Greece and Crete)
• Teach verdamnt Serbs a lesson
• Secure Yugoslavia
• Delay Barbarossa but “Nie Probleme!”

UNEXPECTED: IMPACT ON BARBAROSSA

• Many units involved in 25 and MARITA were to join Barbarossa

before the invasion began or to do so in the second wave.

• Limited rail connections in the Balkans generally meant slow

movement of troops, and especially mechanized and logistics units.

• Barbarossa was planned for mid-May, delayed to 22 June -

and the Russian winter of 1941-42 came early. As a result, the Germans only saw the spires of the Kremlin.

• Tied down two or three field armies (10-12 divisions, air assets,

naval units) for the rest of the war pacifying Balkans

GERMAN DECLARATION OF WAR AGAINST THE US

GERMANY DECLARES WAR

• NO treaty obligation to do

so.

• England stood alone.

Europe was Hitler’s. Barbarossa going well.

• Vague VERBAL commitment

to assist Japan if …

• Decision was made by Adolf

Hitler personally.

ADDRESSING THE REICHSTAG

11 Dec 1941

Why?

• Was Hitler (and his henchmen) just nuts?
• Had avoided war by ignoring US provocations at sea and in

economic war

• US troops were stationed in Greenland and Iceland and the

USN guarded convoys to Iceland

• Assumed with victory in Europe, confrontation with US

inevitable

• Decadent, racially inferior (Blacks, Jews), “mongrel” nation

dominated by pacifistic isolationists

ALTERNATIVE?

• Continue to ignore USN violations and maintain “cordial

animosity”

• Respond with diplomatic notes and propaganda in US

aimed at isolationists and pacifists (overlapping sets)

• Make FDR seek war without provocation (again the

isolationists and pacifists and German- and Italian- and Irish-Americans and probably Scandinavian-Americans, and most Midwesterners and Plains-states people would

• bject strenuously

Outcomes:

• Expected:
• More of Same - US army inferior, aircraft too, only Navy
• f any worry and after Pearl Harbor, the Japanese

would keep us busy

• Actual:
• Arsenal of the Allies, an army that learned and got

enormously better, an air force that blanketed the skies, and a navy larger than all the other navies

OUTCOME: Berlin, May 1945

Definitely NOT a good idea!

THE US’S 90 DIVISION GAMBLE

THE US’S 90 DIVISION GAMBLE

• Purposeful decision to limit US Army to 90 combat division

equivalents (does NOT include Marines or air/sea manpower)

• Made by Marshall, and Stimson
• Points system (for morale purposes) to bring men home -

effectively demobilizing them.

• Draft exempted certain classes of men.
• Women were not at first considered part of the “manpower”

pool.

PURPOSES

• Preserve home front manpower for economic production

(our primary responsibility)

• 1940 estimates indicated this was about the size army we

could created, deploy, and support in the field.

• Induction quotas for Selective Service System were set

accordingly, varying as conditions changed, but based on this basic assumption.

ALTERNATIVE(S)?

• Given the US role as primary producer of the materiel of

war and food for the Allies

• Take more men early (fewer exemptions) and keep

them (no points system) and risk morale issues

• Take fewer men (more exemptions) and have serious

manpower problems either in the logistics tail or in the combat teeth

OUTCOMES

• Manpower shortages in Europe - During the Battles of the

Hurtgen Forrest and of the Bulge in particular

• Expected manpower needs for the Invasion of Japan

(entered the manpower calculations in 1945) exacerbated the problem

• The “points” for going home - effectively demobilization -

made the problem worse by removing combat experienced troops and experienced medical personnel.

MONTGOMERY’S ARNHEM OFFENSIVE

MONTGOMERY’S ARNHEM OFFENSIVE, “MARKET–GARDEN”

• Allied advanced far faster and further than planners expected,
• utrunning logistical infrastructure.
• POL pipelines and the “Red Ball Express” could not deliver

enough gas.

• Ike had decided on broad front advance (contra Monty -

relieved as Allied GFC) but allocated resources to this gamble

• US Twelfth Army group advance halted, short of gas (given to

21st Army group)

WHY MARKET–GARDEN?

• Allied Airborne army seeking use planned COMET
• MARKET with double airborne forces teamed with

GARDEN ground assault to open North German Plain

• Provide crossing of Rhine
• Neutralize Industrial heartland in the Ruhr
• Estimates of German strength in region greatly

understated, making venture look reasonable

WHAT HAPPENED

• Montgomery was audacious -

uncharacteristically, ignored intelligence and topography and Dutch resistance

• FM Montgomery’s 21st Army Group

launched 1st Allied Airborne Army (MARKET) at bridges across the Rhine at Zon and Eindhoven (101 AB), Grave, Nijmegan and the Mass- Waal Canal (82 AB), and at Arnhem (1 BR AB)

• Ground forces (GARDEN) to link up

and use the bridgeheads so they could advance on Berlin, encircle the Ruhr, etc.

• 101st and 82nd AB achieved
• bjectives quickly - used all intell

ALTERNATIVES

• √ Clear Scheldt Estuary

approaches to Antwerp (Port taken by Brits in Sept) - make Port usable - a 15 mi advance!

• √ Give Patton (US Third Army)

gas and let him race east, perhaps Metz would have fallen quickly

• √ Give gas to Hodges (US First

Army) to try advancing on the Rhine

3√

EXPECTED

• Gain Crossing of the Rhine
• By-pass Scheldt Estuary, cutting off Germans holding it
• Shorten the war
• (Monty in competition with Bradley’s (US First and

Third Armies) and Dever’s (Seventh Army) Army Groups to get the bragging rights to the first crossing (honors go to CCB, 9 AD, FIRST Army at Remagen on 7 March)

ACTUAL RESULTS

• Attack failed miserably
• 1st BR AB and 1st Polish Airborne

Brigade heavy losses

• No crossing of the Rhine in 1944
• Weakend Allied build-up in north-

east (21st AG)

• No end of the war inEurope in

1944

• Dutch people suffered famine in

winter as Dutch RR workers struck and Germans forbade movement

• f food - 20+k died

HITER’S DECISION TO CONTINUE THE “FINAL SOLUTION” AT MAXIMUM EFFORT

HITLER CONTINUES THE “FINAL SOLUTION” TO THE BITTER END

• SS/Gestapo/local collaborator police rounding up Jews, etc.
• Einsatzgruppen on eastern front
• Guards for transportees, planning staff for movements
• Railroad personnel and equipment for movement
• Materiel for camp construction and operation, guards for

camps, etc.

• Putting down of Warsaw Ghetto Uprising

Concentration Camps in Greater Germany, 1944

Major European Rail Lines, 1939

COMPETITION WITH THE WAR EFFORT

• Prisoners could be used as workers - Party theorist Alfred

Rosenberg argued to delay implementation and use Jews during war, then kill them

• Took manpower and resources from the war effort for no

gain to Germany – unless eliminating the untermenschen

was of value

• Diversion of rail transport. Troop trains were diverted onto

sidings so transports of Jews could get to the camps faster!

• Army tasked to assist – greater priority than killing Russians!

WHY?

• Nazi Aryan Race Theory
• Based upon American Eugenics thought and Nietzsche’s

notions

• Goal of a Judenfrei (“Jew–free”) Greater Germany took

precedence over winning the war!

RESULTS [and Implicit Alternative]

• Even soldaten accepted Nazi ideology and goals
• Army spent too much time eliminating Jews instead of

fighting

• Too many resources went to the Final Solution
• German war effort less than it could have been
• Allied victory was difficult enough as was, in an alternative

world where Rosenberg’s advice was followed, Das Reich might still be.