What the hell were they doing asking a renowned historian like this to deliver this lecture, when they should have asked several thousand self appointed KZfaq experts to lecture them instead? Fools!

"our german scientists were cleverer than their german scientists", that one was was savage.

KZfaq: Here's a lecture about Germany and WWII Me: okay I'll watch it all

As Napoleon Bonaparte said. Never interrupt your enemy when he is making a mistake.

Well, i am not an expert. But i guess fighting basicly all other Industrial nations at the Same time might have been a strategic mistake...

5:30 Classic Sun Tzu: "when you're strong, appear weak; when you're weak, appear strong.

What a brilliant lecture and so beautifully delivered. I hope England never stops producing men like these.

mental note: National Executive should always listen to strategic generals.

21:07 The ignorance of cold and its drastic effects on people's health, while pretending to be able to tough it out, is one of the most teaching elements. It seems such a benign boasting, which many people still do today, yet it shows how being realistic can also mean looking "weak" in the eyes of delusional people.

I've heard it said that at various points during WW2, Allied forces had the ability to take Hitler out using either sneak attacks or some clandestine operation, but it was far enough into the overt conflict that the Allied powers realized that Hitler was such a colossally bad strategist, and tied up in ideological foolishness and internal power disputes, that it ironically made more sense to keep him in charge, because if he'd been taken out, almost ANYONE who'd have replaced him would've done a much better job and potentially cost the Allies the war.

When Germany broke its pact with Stalin and invaded the USSR, Stalin feared doom for his regime if Japan, which already occupied China, invaded the Soviet Far East. Fortunately for Stalin, the Soviet dictator had a highly effective nest of spies among the Japanese: Richard Sorge, a German; Hotsumi Ozaki, a Japanese journalist; and Kinkazu Saionji, a Japanese political operative. As M. Stanton Evans details in _Blacklisted By History_, this circle of Soviet spies succeeded (or assisted) in persuading the Japanese government to strike south into Southeast Asia, rather than north into the Soviet Far East. Meanwhile Soviet spies in the US such as Lauchlan Currie lobbied FDR to seek an accommodation with Tokyo. This all took place in 1941. We will never know how differently events would have turned out if Germany and Japan had joined forces to crush the USSR in a pincer movement, Western forces were not drawn into East Asia to defend against Japan, and the US had stayed out of the Pacific war because Pearl Harbor never happened.

Guderian visited the Soviet Union in 1938 and wrote a report to higher staffs in the Wehrmacht, warning about the much better than anticipated tank force they had. It was ignored. That is what politics do to military leadership. You can observe this in the US nowadays and elsewhere too, I guess 😂😂

What a great lecture, so well delivered too, thank you! Absolutely brilliant.

Headphone users beware, stop the video 5 seconds before the end.

Excellent talk and delivered with an absolute minimum of notes . The point about ideology trumping sound military strategy is well made and entirely plausible.

What a fantastic lecture. Liked that the lecturer himself was a touch nervous, he must've known the caliber of his audience then & they must've been some learned people. GREAT WORK TEACH!

What a gem 💎 Outstanding educational! Worth bringing it back! Thanks for sharing!

Having one's eyelids frozen off must bring insanity.

Not listening to generals was never a reason why Hitler lost the war. His generals said tanks won't be able to penetrate France's forests, yet he didn't listen to them and attacked, taking out France. Loyalty was also a good thing, cause no matter how good the specialist is, if they're against you, you're doomed

High on my (uninformed) list of missed opportunities was Hitler's failure to persuade Franco to attack or allow Germany to attack Gibraltar (from the land). Franco used the Luftwaffe to win the civil war and yet the terms or behaviour of both parties failed to form an agreement. The fall of Gibraltar would have changed the N.Africa campaign and the attack on Sicily.

If you really think Hitler wasn’t mad, then you must be mad yourself.

Excellent video

Brilliant. Will have to get the book.

Interesting topic, thanks for the analysis! I would also say that Hitler bribed his Generals with lavish cash amounts and confiscated estates to get them to agree with him. Guderian wanted his confiscated Polish estate back after the war!

That's easy. He stopped attacking RAF airfields and started attacking English cities. Thus enabling RAF to grow stronger and win Battle of Britain which denied him German air cover over English Channel. So his boats were unable to cross the channel without being attacked by British aircraft.

fascinating

How did Bruno Ganz not win the oscar?

There seems to be quite a lot of what I'd consider outdated historiography here. Japan would have never helped Germany out. They weren't really allies in a true sense of the word, they simply had some mutual interests, but after the bloody nose Japan received at Khalkhin Gol they were extremely reluctant to rattle the Soviet Union. This was to the point that in 1945 a large reason why they held off on surrendering was because they were hoping to have Moscow mediate peace talks between them and the United States, a prospect that utterly failed when the USSR invaded Manchuria. The fall of Moscow would have meant nothing for the Soviet war effort either, for whom the war was existential, and that in itself was a dubious possibility at best considering that Army Group Centre was at a brink of total collapse after the counteroffensives following the Battle of Moscow. It's actually incredible how close Centre came to folding entirely, Moscow was their last true shot at anything for that campaign season. The Battle of Britain could also not have been won by the Nazis, and even had the RAF been damaged more than it was, Sealion would still be a nonstarter because the Royal Navy would have had a say in the matter and neither the Kriegsmarine nor the Luftwaffe would have a great chance against that force within the English Channel. Hitler's role is also, in my view, overstated. There were plenty of times in which Hitler listened to his generals and they were the ones who made mistakes. A lot of Hitler's tyranny was written about post-war by German generals who were trying to exonerate themselves, but especially prior to the attempt on his life in July 1944, Hitler was quite happy to listen to his generals, even in cases where he was correct and they were not. Hitler was famously very against Operation Citadel, saying that it made his "stomach turn over." Hitler did a lot of reshuffling, even moreso towards the end of the war, but by that point the war was already lost anyway and in many cases Hitler understood the overall strategic situation better than his commanders did. Let's not take their word at face value here - they were Nazi sympathisers or outright Nazis themselves, not exactly the most trustworthy bunch. Lastly, in this presentation there seems to be a distinct lack of United States. The US alone had the resources to outproduce Nazi Germany at a terrifying rate. Any discussion of any possibility of German victory in the war would have to be balanced out by the simple fact that the US could provide Lend Lease to all of her allies whilst also fully equipping her army with state-of-the-art equipment that could easily rival the best of German kit. No wunderwaffe could match the sheer production of the United States alone, and with USSR in the mix the numbers were simply impossible, especially with the artisan style of production Germany used prior to Speer's simplifying of the war economy in 1943 - far too late. Ultimately Nazi Germany couldn't have won the war. At best they could have hoped to murder a few tens of millions more innocent people, but there was never a chance that they would have won the war. Ideology was an extremely important part of this, and I agree that Hitler was extremely ideologically-driven, but Germany was also completely out-generalled and outproduced. They were defeated by smarter commanders, better strategy, and better equipment.

very good talk

Hitler lost the war when he decided to attack the USSR. That opened up a two front war and his army couldn't do both.

Always remember the parable of Achilles. It applies everywhere.

The story about how the Battle of Britain changed is mentiolned in the BBC-PBS series Battlefield. Great series. Watched almost all 30 episodes.

There are so many variables in play that it’s difficult to summarize. If you had a supercomputer, you might begin to model a world war …. Maybe. Looking back, some things are hard to believe. The US shipped Soldiers directly to war zones with no training. Congress eventually insisted that all Soldiers get some training. DePuy, Gorman, and Kanner created the later training revolution, but they made IMO one large mistake. The TRADOC training base would train individual tasks and units would train collective tasks. LTG Bown later included the ten days of war as the ENDEX at the Armor Ctr. Today DARPA created SIMNET which allows simulated large scale force-on-force training.while the NTC allows company level force on force training. Getting back to WW2, a huge variable was logistics…. Germany faced huge problems supplying units across immense distances with poor infrastructure.

To make a short story even shorter, your ego will sink your own ship, every time.

Shameless plug at 18:12 haha - wow I am totally enjoying this speaker. Thank you KZfaq

Very cool.

I ve lived in a cold part of Canada all my life. Just as cold as Russia. But I’ve never heard of case of someone’s eyelids falling off due to frostbite or cold. Ears and nose , toes and fingers freeze, but not eyelids… Just doesn’t happen. This makes me question all his other opinions and observations.

In all fairness, in addition to ideology, the Red Army looked incompetent and weak in Finland. Also, it can be argued that it was a pre-emptive strike. How long could a Nazi Germany and USSR, two polarized police states, share a peaceful border? If Stalin had more time to build up and improve his own Red Army, would he not come knocking or making demands on Hitler? That fight was going to happen sooner or later.

The last 5 seconds was Hitler's ghost, trying to get in the last word. 😂

What's the title of his book?

In fact, Hitler stated in a lunch meeting with the Finnish Field Marshal von Mannerheim that while if he had been aware of the vast armour resources of the Red Army he might have had second thoughts about Operation Barbarossa, however through diplomatic channels it was learned that the Red Army was preparing to attack the Third Reich later in the summer of 1941, therefore he had to beat them to the punch and he did--he caught the Soviets unprepared. However what has been presented here is otherwise correct; he should have prepared his troops for winter and he should have kept pushing his way into Moscow.

I assumed that Hitler was talking about temperatures in Celsius units. It sucks that when a European speaks in the US, this confusion arises. We Americans need to use the units that the others use.

All without notes !!!

So my big issue with this lecture is that while yes towards the end of the war he was making bad calls and essentially destroying the army we forget that at the start of the war his officers were making bad calls and he was over ruling them in some cases saving the german army take for example the battle of Moscow had they retreated the army would have been destroyed in the same kind of march that destroyed the grand army over 100 years ago but having them dig in gave them much needed shelter and a fighting chance against the red army divisions that were starting to bear down on them an example of when he didn't do this was before the battle of Kursk he was quoted as saying that thinking of the operation made him sick to his stomach and he felt like it would have been a blood bath and he was right I do feel like I must reiterate that this was early to mid war later on he was over ruling the wrong orders and making the bad calls that we're used to this lecture while full of good quotes and good history at times screams of the post war memoirs written by former generals who pinned all their failures and warcrimes on Mr. H or the officers who died

It was Raader who didn't want to build a large uboat fleet. Same kind of thing happened US Navy in the 1980's.

This comment section proves that AH’s ideology is still very much alive today

when i visit UK today and walk trough some citiy i got the feeling u guys lost too^^

Russian manpower, the American economy, and British perseverance.

I wish I had a better recollection of the aurhors TIK has cited and their biases.

Addiction

Thank you, Professor. I just looked up the “Führer's Principle” that you mentioned early. Here it is for other Google scholars: The “Führerprinzip (German: [ˈfyːʀɐpʀɪnˌtsiːp], the leader principle) prescribed the fundamental basis of political authority in the Government of Nazi Germany, understood to mean that "the Führer's word is above all written law" and that government policies, decisions, and offices all work towards the realisation of ‘’… (those goals) … // This was new to me and it helps to understanding how he was motivated. Danke!

It's Amazing how people sill watching those videos after 11 years been uploaded and even many years back recorded. to Summarize what's being said by Dr: i) the Axis powers launched their attack very successfully using Blitzkrieg strategy but couldn't keep it because: 1- Hitler used to put his Nazi Ideology in front of national strategic realistic interest in decision making process were he didn't pay enough attention to his generals and strategic advisors. 2- Some personal characteristics of Hitler like stubborn and narcissistic cost him big loss in manpower and resources were his generals can't retreat their forces, Moreover sometimes making them keep a pointless fights and engagements like in Crete island. 3- Doing a holocaust in a real wrong time were Germany is suffering from lack of man power and scientist and engineers. 4- wrong Estimations of the enemy's abilities and situations like what happened in Barbarossa operation to invade Russia without proper preparations Wehrmacht troops got freeze tens of thousands of them died because of cold or famine.

The course and eventual outcome of the War would have been different,had Hitler not set himself on a collision course with Stalin.

Berlin, 29 April, 1945, 4 a.m. [final writing before his death] "It is untrue that I or anyone else in Germany wanted war in 1939. It was wanted and provoked solely by international statesmen either of Jewish origin or working for Jewish interests. I have made too many offers for the limitation and control of armaments, which posterity will not be cowardly enough always to disregard, for responsibility for the outbreak of this war to be placed on me. Nor have I ever wished that, after the appalling First World War, there would ever be a second against either England or America. Centuries will go by, but from the ruins of our towns and monuments the hatred of those ultimately responsible will always grow anew against the people whom we have to thank for all this: international Jewry and its henchmen."

While interesting he plays down the small ecomomies of the axis powers which meant they simply could not produce enough material to fight the allies which mean they could not have won outside of weak governments looking to appease.

Re the Japanese there was some collaboration with the Germans there was a few tanks sent over and planes and their technology on jet/rocket planes development was shared. Leading to Japanese versions of German fighters

Parallels here with Putin and his 2024 interview with Tucker Carlson: *values matter*. Ideology matters. People aren't little robots maximizing their narrow self-interest. Even countries (which are ruled by people) do not always follow their self-interest.

When he was talking about how Hitler would promote his soldiers based on ideology rather than being a good soldier. I was thinking to myself "I'm sure glad that kind of thing isn't happening today".

I've heard there was a German tank commander (I think) who said something like "1 German tank was worth 4 US tanks. The problem was they always sent 5." Pretty amazing how much power Germany and Japan were separately able to muster in a fairly short amount of time.

The day Hitler decided to invade the USSR and not England, his fate was sealed. 80% of German casualties occurred on the Eastern front.

Great talk, and I agreed with all Dr Roberts' points. However, one important element was missing. Germany had no oil. It struggled by making substitutes from its coal reserves but this was never enough or of sufficient quality. The invasion of USSR was as much to do with getting hold of the oil fields in the south as anything else. It's also the reason Hitler did not want war with Britain. While our army and air force was lacking investment our so-called senior service was big enough to blockade Germany and prevent oil imports. Lack of fuel severely impeded the Nazi effort throughout the war and is one of the reasons they lost.

Because no Country on earth could go to war against the US, UK and USSR all at once and hope to win. Basically Germany was fighting 6 other Germanys when you factor Manpower, resources and manufacturing capacity. The US alone had twice Germany's population , 5 times their resources and 4x their manufacturing capacity.

"We won because our German scientists were cleverer than their German scientists." LOL

Hitler to Mannerheim; "If one of my generals had stated that any nation had 35,000 tanks, I'd have said: 'You, my good sir, you see everything twice or ten times.You are crazy, you are seeing ghosts.'". Hitler underestimated the USSR and their winters. The window of opportunity for the Nazis to defeat the USSR was very narrow.

"No enemy bomber can reach Berlin. If one reaches Berlin, my name is not Goering. You may call me Meyer." -Hermann Meyer, September, 1939

Short version. No country can beat the US, UK and USSR at the same time.

The russkies don't get enough credit. The war on the western front was a skirmish compared to the carnage of the east

Why Hitler Lost the War - Actual version: You can't win a war on two world powers which can beat you in production, logistics, manpower, and energy/oil production at the same time.

Hitler would listen to his generals for hours but he was texting on his iPhone most of the time. :- |

Vow! thank you very much for this absolutely well-constructed and entertaining speech. I wish I were half as good a speaker as Dr. Roberts is.

Hitler was a politician, not a military strategist. As the presenter says over and over, he made military decisions using political ideology as his primary set of principles. Of course, this would never happen in the United States...I mean, no President would EVER interfere with military commanders in the field for political reasons *COUGH* LBJ *COUGH*

Why would anyone thumb down this? It’s a history lecture..... what on earth could you be annoyed it?

Very interesting perspective. I enjoyed this very much. Thank you.

A most excellent presentation by Dr. Roberts. Thank you for posting this.

Didn't Germany have the entire British Army cornered and could have annihilated them all at Dunkirk, but instead allowed them to live and escape?... If they didn't do that maybe things would have happened differently.

Very well presented - thank you.

Fascinating lecture. Thank you so very much...

This guy and most here miss the point entirely. "If Hitler had more submarines" "If Barbarossa had started earlier" "If Hitler had finished brits before going east" From the BEGINNING of the war, there's an extreme rationing on....oil. Yes oil. Even with Romania oil, Germany can barely sustain army & war factories. So, how you're going to fuel 400 sub when you barely can do it for 40? You can't import anymore due to the UK navy. You're left with one choice: the ussr. They gathered ALL THE FUEL they could get for Barbarossa. The entire thing: 2 months worth of operations, after what it'll nearly be impossible to attack. If Hitler ordered a no retreat order during soviet offensive of winter 41, it's vastly because there was no fuel at all. His generals of course, will tell how Hitler was dumb, but will rarely put the blame on themselves.

Because dictators always think they know everything and overrule the better advice of others who obviously know better. The narcisstic psychology that propelled these individuals into power thus becomes their own undoing. I'm glad they lost, otherwise many of us would not be here.

The orator does have some valid points but he is mostly off on a lot of them. Hitler was an ideologue but not all of his motivations came from ideology. For example, his view that Hitler invaded the Soviet Union purely on racism and anti-semitism. Germany came out of the Weimar Republic without much oil and had to produce synthetic oil from coal which is an expensive process. Oil is one of the vital resources that is needed to maintain a mechanized military and for economic consumption for the economy in general. Hitler was an international economic expropriator and looter foremost when it came to military strategy. His world view isn't just that of racism but also cultures/nations struggle between other cultures/nations for the world's natural resources which is one of the bases of fascist autarky. The British had imposed a blockade on Germany which forced the state to pursue other sources of oil and that happens to be the Caucasus. Outside of the Caucasus and Russia, the only source of oil was Romania but that wasn't enough. The blockade would block imports by sea. Hitler wanted to control the oil fields of the region to switch his focus back at Britain. Germany did not have sufficient transport of materials and equipment. Their standard leFH 18 10.5cm howitzers were towed by horses and they didn't have enough heavy howitzers. That makes logical sense because a tank without fuel and oil is useless while a towed howitzer that is light enough can at least be moved by horses. Horses are not preferred for moving things around obviously because they are too slow. Hitler prioritized resources over tactics than his top generals. Hitler was no economic genius but he did have financial ministers/advisors, etc, so he had some grasp on the state of the economy of the nation and the military. He could either cease militarism or he could try to take over more resources to maintain an army. This is a very similar situation to the Saddam Hussien invading Kuwait in the 1990s. You have belligerent states who want a military but can't afford it, so in order to maintain it, they need to invest more wars to try to acquire more resources to sustain it for immediate satisfaction. The reason why Germany lost Operation Barbarossa was the focus on major cities such as Moscow which was not a good idea for a "quick war" because Blitzkrieg or tank tactics for that matter are not that effective in urban combat. Urban combat suits the defenders the most especially if they are more familiar with the environment. Cities were not major sources of resources, in fact, stuff like oil was imported from other regions into such cities such as the Volga River feeding Stalingrad from the South. By pursuing urban combat, the Germans opened themselves to setbacks such as "the grain elevator fight" in Stalingrad. Things like tank fire, light artillery fire, could not get the Russian defenders out of there. They would be in a drawn-out battle and allow the Soviets time to counter-attack while the Germans were in the least advantageous position basically nullifying the shock to the enemy. The Germans never surveyed the urban environment either which is not a good idea when fighting in unfamiliar territory. Even still, successfully capturing Moscow wouldn't guarantee Soviet surrender and it would be costly to do so. The German command thought of the France victory and had no grasp of the ferocity the Soviets had to defend their land. German generals also failed to realize how much of a disadvantage urban combat would be in a crunch. About Japan-Germany cooperation, the orator is correct. There wasn't much cooperation between the two and because of that, the US got into the war which was disastrous for the Axis because, at the time, the US was the greatest producer of oil by far. The US did not use horses for their towed artillery, they didn't need to. They used mechanized primary movers instead. The US could power a fleet of ships without much problems or a war effort.

I always thought it was inevitable that they would lose, Hitler's grand fuckups just made it quicker.

Well Germany lost because they had to fight the U.K, U.S.A, Canada, France, Soviet Union (not Russia but much bigger), while the British colonies are helping with food, supplies and everything else. It's like saying this ONE guy has to fight 6-7 guys at once, you tell me why he lost!?

Thank you for sharing. A very interesting analysis.

Great point with examples! A nice job done. :)

"We defeated the wrong enemy" - U. S. A. 5 Star General George Patton, 1945 Berlin, died weeks later.

A great contribution to my understanding of the war.

Sublime presentation and truely interesting!

4 out of every 5 Wehrmacht soldiers killed in WWII died on the eastern front.

Werner Heisenberg was in charge of creation of german atomic bomb. When asked after the war why he failed to create one he said he did it purposefully as he did not wanted the nazi to have a nuclear bomb.

Cheers for the earrape at the end.

I haven't watched the video yet but I am going to guess that going to war with everyone at the same time had something to do with it!

great explanation!

An old german soilder once told me "Always be sure to polish the backs of your shoes because thats the last thing people see of you as your walking away" Old Hugo Hopfliecsh might have been on the wrong side in 43, but he was sharp as a tack.

Hardly surprising that an upper class Brit "historian" neglects to mention that Kim Philby was feeding Ultra decryptions to Stalin, who on occasion read them even before Churchill did. This was a decisive factor at Kursk, and thereafter informed the Soviet strategy during the German retreat, speeding up the Soviet advance considerably.

In another words: If Hitler wasn't such a nazi fanatic he could easly estabilsh first European Union.

Excellent and thoughtful lecture. I learned much. Thank You Dr. Roberts.

There is a more simple answer. They were a mechanized army that started WW2 with 2 months worth of fuel.

Things Hitler did wrong. Oh boy! Where do I even begin? 1. Invading the Soviet Union without finishing off Britain 2. Stopped bombing runways during the Battle Britain and started trying to bomb houses despite lacking a proper heavy bomber like the American B29 3. Committing genocide on Soviet Slavs and Poles for bullshit racial ideology when MANY people hated Stalin and would have joined Germany instead of forming partisans that fought to the death. 4. Executing over 80% of Soviet POWS, which convinced the Soviets to stop surrendering after 1941. Germany beat Russia in WW1 because millions of Russian soldiers threw down their arms and surrendered. When your opponent outnumbers you two to one, it is in your best interest for them to surrender and NOT fight to the death. This is basic fucking logic. 5. Wasting money on "rail guns", laughable tank projects like the Mouse, and other "Wunderweapons" rather than focus on cranking out basic designs in large numbers. The Panther 4 was a great tank, the King Tiger was a logistical nightmare. 6. Overstretching supply lines and constantly showing zero regard for logistics. Winter clothes? fuck em. We don't need that shit, we have balls! 7. Declaring War on the United States! The US had many powerful business men that were allied with the Nazis and the American public was about as racist on average as the German public. The racial theories that Nazism promoted were largely created in America by Madison Grant, and US author Jack London had a cheerful short story about gassing non-Aryans in the 1920s. America may have never declared war on Germany if Germany hadn't declared war first. At least the US would have repeated WW1 and waited until Germany was on its last leg against the Soviets. Actually we sort of did that anyways. 8. Abandoning the atomic program in 1943. If Germany hadn't chased out all the Jewish scientists, they probably could have had the bomb by 1942 and would rule the world today! A German scientist discovered nuclear fission and Germany started out with a HUGE lead in the atomic program, but losing half of their scientists and abandoning any physics discovered by Jews, instead teaching "Deutche Physik" was a disaster.

He could not have produced 400 subs while rearming the army and the airforce. The industrial capacity was not large enough.

Hitler lost the war because he did not follow the simple rule - Know Your Enemy. Hitler lost the war because the war was about industrial power and numbers of men. Hitler lost the war because his early bluffing and overpowering weaker forces made him feel invincible. Hitler lost the war because huge manpower and resources were wasted on "super weapons" and protoypes that never were produced. Hitler lost the war because he used an "unbreakable" code- the Enigma machine. Hitler lost the war because he made more strategic blunders than successes. The greatest event of the war was the USA economy which in 3.5 years produced massive munitions and equipment and the B-29 and atomic bomb.