In the United States, and I suspect most of Europe, we’re led to believe that World War Two was a kind of existential battle between the Axis powers and the Allies, and the fate of the world was at stake. There are certainly people more knowledgable than me, but having read a few books on the subject, I find it hard to believe this. I’ve come to conclude that, from the beginning, there was absolutely no path to victory for the Third Reich — it could not have possibly beaten the UK, USSR, and US.

World War Two began because the Third Reich sought to utilize the resources of central and eastern Europe in its forthcoming struggle against Russia. With Russia (and Slavs) out of the way, Aryans would be able to colonize eastern Europe, and create a kind of supranational racial order. So in 1939, Germany invaded Poland. However, the UK and France intervened. In 1940, Germany invaded France, and caught the French off guard by making an unanticipated, but powerful push through the Ardennes Forest. In doing so, the Wehrmacht was able to break the French army into two, and it prevented the French from reforming their line. In about a month, the French surrendered. The Germans were proud of this accomplishment, but these tactics and circumstances could not be replicated against the UK or Russia; the former being an island, and the latter being too massive to knock out in one blow. The Germans had one quick, fortuitous victory but they couldn’t count on two more.

With France out of the way, the Wehrmacht focused on Britain. The British navy was vastly superior to anything the German could put in the North Sea, so in order to invade Britain, Germany would have to secure dominance in the air. The Battle of Britain lasted for a few months in 1940, but in the end, Germany was unable to make progress of any kind. The British could manufacture aircraft at a higher right than the Germans, and at a higher rate than the Germans could destroy British ones. At the end of 1940, Germany was no closer to invading Britain than it had been earlier that spring. It’s important to keep in mind that from the middle of 1940 to the middle of 1941, Britain was the sole adversary of Nazi Germany, so it isn’t as though the Germans were using their resources elsewhere.

Then we have the German invasion of Russia. Like its plans for France, the Wehrmacht hoped to knock Russia out of the war quickly. Operation Barbarossa involved launching an enormous assault on Russia that extended all the way from the Baltic to the Black Sea. The Germans hoped to reach the A-A line, and force the Red Army out of continental Europe. The Wehrmacht began with marked success — I think the Russians lost about two million dead and five million prisoners in the first six months of this conflict. But even this wasn’t enough to wipe out the inexhaustible Red Army, and it wasn’t even close. The Germans were able to make advances into Russia for six months, but once their offensive stalled, it never got going again. The Russians were able to move their armaments factories beyond the Urals and into the Caucuses, and once the Russian war machine got going, the Germans couldn’t come close to matching it. It would take a few years, but the Wermacht would eventually implode on the Eastern Front due to a lack of men and resources.

With all this in mind, I arrive at my question: Was the German war effort doomed from the beginning? I would say yes. Look at these figures (they’re all from Richard Evans’ The Third Reich at War): in 1943, the US produced 86,000 aircraft, the USSR produced 37,000, the UK produced 35,000, and Germany produced 26,000. In 1943, the combined Allied production of machine-guns came to 1,110,000, compared to 165,527 in Germany. There was absolutely no way for Germany to overcome the logistical disadvantages between it and the Allied powers. Keep in mind that the US barely lifted a finger in the European theater. The Allied invasion of Normandy occurred after the German retreat on the Eastern Front had begun. I think WWII can be described as Britain and the US waiting for the USSR to defeat Germany, and invading in the final months solely to have a stake in the post-war solution. By invading, the US prevented all of Europe from falling into the USSR’s hands, but it did not play a major role in defeating the Third Reich. Today, ordinary people, and even many history buffs, look back at the Second World War as an existential conflict in which the fate of the world was precarious for seven years, but I think it makes more sense to view it as a one-sided conflict initiated by an “irrational actor” that happened to take place on the largest scale humanity has ever seen. This is further evidenced by the delusional and literally suicidal leadership of the Nazi staff. What are your thoughts? Is there anything I’m missing?

I’m not an American, nor am I an expert in American history.

I just want to know where the gun laws come from, and are guns being used the way the founding fathers intended them to be used?

Hi everybody, so I decided to pursue my education in History but I'm stuck at where I want to specialize. I'm extremely interested in European history, specifically Scotland and Wales. I'm also interested in Vikings and Norse mythology. My dream is to eventually study the history of the Celts but I don't have an opportunity to do that in the specific area I'm at right now. So my question is: which should I focus on? I'm really interested in the Highland culture of Scotland and honestly, I've always been interested in Wales but haven't pursued learning much about it yet. I'm not even sure if I can focus on Vikings. Besides the locations and the people, I don't know the specific time period to choose from, either? The universities I have access to really only focus on European history by time period, so if I want to eventually specialize in a specific country, I want to be previously studying the accurate time period to which I'm interested.

I'm just lost about which to choose. I struggled with choosing European history in the first place because I'm interested in so many different places and cultures. I'm kind of all over the place right now about what to do, you know? Because the history of Europe is so extensive and there are so many places I want to learn about. I would greatly appreciate any help!

Hi, I have to write an essay discussing what was the cause of the destruction of the Minoans, do any of you have any sources I can use? Thank you for any support and recommendations.

It required global warming to usher in the era of agriculture more than 10,000 years ago, but why wasn't agriculture done in the warmer regions of the world (like India or SE Asia or southern Africa)? Why was it that Levantine, Anatolian, and Zagros Mountain Farmers did farming when the weather warmed up, but not the hunters and gatherers of warmer places - like South Asia?

The walls have fallen, and Mehmed the 2nd's infantry come pouring in. What happens next?

The use of the terms “left” and “right” to describe the orientation of a person/political party/etc has been widely accepted for decades now. How did these two terms come to be the de facto spectrum of ideological alignment? How did people describe this spectrum prior to these terms? Was such a spectrum even relevant before Marx and Engels?

Battles in WW1 seem much more straight forward to describe: trenches.

But how would you describe land battles in WW2 in Europe? They seemed to be far more fluid than before.

Over what sort of timescales did they take place? How did armies resupply as they pushed forward? What sort of tactics were most common or preferred by each country?

If an army gained ground, how did they hold onto it? When the books describe a ‘counter attack’, what does that actually mean?

What did a soldier actually do during a battle? And for how long would they be expected to stay on the front line before being replaced? How much of a soldier’s time was actually spent in combat?

And I’d love to hear answers to any other interesting sub questions you can think of.

Thank you for any responses.

I just thought of this this morning, and I've been thinking about it all day.

So, today and in the recent past the most common (or I guess the most well known or popular) delusions people with paranoid schizophrenia, or just paranoia, have are usually about technology, cameras, aliens, the government, etc.

Before technology and other similar things, what did delusions consist of? Basically, what were people paranoid about in the past? How did they change over time?

I'm not saying that all paranoid people have the same delusions or anything, I'm just curious to see what used to be common like delusions about technology are common today.

Thank you!

The New Deal was a series of social programs spanning many sectors, with its intent to help bolster the economy and usher in a "return to normalcy". One could make a strong argument that the US's involvement in WW2 was the single most important contribution to getting out of the GD.

With that aside, how significant of an impact did the New Deal have? I recall reading somewhere that it had little to no effect, and somewhere else that it actually lengthened the span of the Depression.

So historians, what is your take?

Thanks!

I was looking at the sculpture “David” by Michelangelo and I noticed that David is ripped. He has a defined six pack and a lot of muscle definition. I was looking at some other sculptures and saw that a lot of old sculptures of Jesus. They put him with abs too.

Were abs and a muscular physique an ideal? I understand life was different and there was more physical labor, but aren’t toned abs pretty hard to achieve?

And why are statues of females always shown as with a normal to curvier body but the guys are totally jacked?

The same holds true for a lot of places that were colonized by the British, like Australia, NZ, and even India (Mumbai on the coast).

Toronto is on the Great Lakes so it's still on a large body of water, but why is a city on the coast like Halifax not the largest?

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Personally I am not religious but I'm curious what we actually know about him and if the things I was told by my religious family was actually true. Like is it true that people saw his body missing from his tomb? Is it true that he claimed to be a God? What was he actually like? How much of the gospels actually give accurate information about him?

I can’t seem to find any other sources that claim this and the number seems impossibly high. Where did the film get this information from? What’s the basis for this claim?

Im trying to educate myself on occult, magical, and religious history. Unfortunately i’m rather uninformed as to effective methods of note taking I could use as I read and analyze texts. I have tried doing research but have been unable to find any satisfying material, and I am aware of methods like Outlining and Cornell, but am not confident as to whether or not these methods are effective in the context of history note taking. So I wanted to ask what methods you all use, and if you have any recommendations, tips, or advice? Thank you so very much for any answers.