Thread:Cyrannian/@comment-25890179-20180111235940/@comment-25890179-20180116173845

@Wormulon - Interesting to have a conversation with so many people who share my knowledge of the subject.

Perhaps my answer didn't convey the meaning I intended, so let me rephrase. The Axis Powers probably came the closest any group of people ever came to conquering the world (I'm not counting the Soviets because any escalation there would have resulted in nuclear war). They had the manpower, they had the culture, and they had the industry (well, Germany did for a while).

That being said, one major thing that led to their defeat was something that was one of the main reasons the regimes came to power. Hitler built his power by denouncing and blaming the Jews for everything. Most Germans hated them anyway and thought they cost them WWI, so fine. He also railed against the Soviets. They were becoming a massive empire that was threatening many future Axis nations and the Germans needed living space, so fine.

It should have stopped there. Hitler had an enemy at home to rally his people against, and he had the Soviets and the other Allies to focus on after he came to power. There was no logical, strategic, or tactical call to persecute Roma, Slavs, etc. Had he been less racist and consumed with the Ubermensch idea, Eastern Europeans would have flocked to his side in droves and they might have countered Stalin's numerical advantage.

Same goes for the Japanese. They needed living space too. Understandable, given their small islands. But the mass brutality they inflicted was just ridiculous. Think of all those native people who might have freely fought for them. The Moros from the Philippines, for example, fought the Japanese and Americans over the entire war. The Japanese slaughtered them too, when an easier and more tactical approach would have simply been to give the Moros independence over the islands they want. Boom, allies.

China was a huge blunder too. Before the Japanese invaded them, Germany and China were allies, with Germany sending them weapons and supplies, and training their troops, in exchange for resources. The Japanese screwed themselves by invading China and becoming bogged down there. It also cost the Germans a useful ally. So why not be smart, and give the Japanese large chunks of Soviet territory on the mainland, so you can keep both Japan and China as an ally, or at least promise them some pieces of western Europe they could settle colonists in. Massive blunders like this, wasted opportunities that you or I could see but they couldn't are why the Axis lost.

So there is what I meant. Yes the Axis were colonial, they all wanted living space and to build their own empires (yes you were right about Mussolini; he wanted to reclaim all territory once held by the Romans). My point was the slaughter and persecution of native peoples was just plain stupid. They wasted countless chances of alliances based on racial prejudice (sound like a certain U.S. leader we know?).

I could list several other huge blunders too, like actually giving Hitler any power over the military at all. Seriously, why did any of his generals stand by and obey this guy? The minute he said "I'm going to bed and nobody can move a single soldier without my permission, don't wake me up no matter what", somebody should have shot him and took over. Somebody like Rommel. With that guy as Supreme Commander of the Axis armies, they might have had a fighting chance.

Invading the Soviets wasn't a bad move, actually. Stalin was planning to do the exact same thing to Hitler, and was shocked that Hitler did it first. However, the decision to invade in winter was stupid, as was the decision not to capture Moscow. Pearl Harbor might've worked, if they actually finished off the American fleet and not lost their own fleet at Midway.

So that's my thesis. The Axis Powers died of idiotic racial prejudice and bad military choices. I'm interested to hear your response.