Why did Germany lose World War II?

[Alex82727]

[BCA6010]

Tons of reasons, I can't name them all. They bit off way more than they could chew, and botched the Battle of Britain by not annihilating Britain's airfields and ports while instead targeting cities. If they had crippled Britain's ability to project force, they could've more likely forced a cease-fire and at least a temporary victory, but this failure along with the US entering the war made that impossible. It's also pretty likely that they wouldn't have succeeded in this endeavor anyway due to a lack of heavy or long range bombers, and a navy too small to compete with the Royal Navy and shell coastal targets. They were in a lot of ways victims of their own success and hubris- the invasion of France was expected to be a much longer campaign that would take half a year rather than a few weeks, and it greatly emboldened an already arrogant higher leadership to overestimate their capabilities. Despite sinking an incredible number of ships in the Atlantic, the boat and surface raider campaign barely put a dent in allied supply lines, and became basically suicide missions as the war progressed. The plans to invade Russia never focused on actually defeating Russia, but instead occupying oil fields and other economically valuable assets. Furthermore, Italy proved to be an inept ally in pretty much every way outside of their Navy (forcing Germany to commit more troops and manage a second and later third front), and Japan being on the opposite side of the world left them both basically on their own, while the allies had a much easier time collaborating. This is by no means to say that the allies ran a flawless retaliatory campaign- we made completely asinine decisions ourselves pretty regularly (some especially in Europe we acknowledged but flat out ignored because we knew victory was certain eventually anyway), but we had major advantages that the Axis could never compete with, first and foremost resource access and industrial output, and eventually total dominance over the oceans.

[andreasderjuengere]

Hitler and his fellow Nazi's lost the war. But not Germany overall :D

(well - in fact some of the Nazi's had changed sides early enough to serve under other nations that lacked some experience in applied military violence) -

so when we talk about losing... we also need to reflect the significance of ''winning''.

[DaisyM23]

Various reasons but I think Hitler's decision to invade the Soviet Union probably played a big part in dividing their resources in fighting on two fronts (plus Africa), especially on one they had no experience in and whose government rotated through soldiers with no care. Plus they invaded and annexed a lot of Europe which wasn't sustainable in the long run. And of course major opposition from Allied forces, Britain, France, America, Soviet Union etc - Britain also had its empire so lots of manpower and resources across whichever front they fought on. America joining in 1941/42 also significantly helped Europe. Leadership problems, I think it was Hitler himself who decided to attack the Soviet Union after their failure to invade Britain and the evacuation of Dunkirk, and soon enough they were approached from the East and West, plus Allies pushing from Italy I think.

[FunkyMonkee]

Look who was in charge!
Besides, we had Hogan's Heroes.

[QuietRunner]

Biggest is the shear number of countries opposed to Germany.

Germany may have won with a different strategy