"The Battle that Sealed Germany's Fate" Topic

"Drew Middleton covered the Battle of the Bulge for The New York Times. He was the newspaper's military-affairs correspondent for many years and is now a columnist for The Times's news syndicate.

Shortly before dawn on Dec. 16, 1944, the G.I.'s of an American intelligence and reconnaissance platoon of the 394th Infantry Regiment at Lanzerath saw the sky to the east lighted by the flashes of more than 100 guns. Silhouetted against the flashes were scores of German tanks and artillery which, as dawn broke, rumbled through the snow toward the Americans' positions.

The movement, 40 years ago, was the start of the German offensive on an 80-mile front through the Ardennes region of Belgium that has come to be called the Battle of the Bulge, after the triangular wedge in which it was fought. This was Hitler's last great throw of the dice. As Field Marshal Gerd von Rundstedt, the German commander in the field, wrote in an order of the day: ''WE GAMBLE EVERYTHING.''…"
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Amicalement
Armand

Surely it was decided much sooner. Stalingrad?

It's have to say the Winter of 1942 is when the Germans lost the attack initiative. I'm not sure if I'd say it was any one battle but after that they never achieved any strategic objectives, they were mainly able to perform counter-attacks.

The Destruction of Army Group Center was the final nail in the coffin.

Wolfhag

IMO it was decided at Dunkirk. The failure to knock Britain out fo the war led to war on two fronts.

You both make valid points but this is a 1984 article in the the New York Times and so has a bias towards heavy American involvement. I would actually have expected them to have said D-Day.

After Operation Bagration, no one could save the Reich. It would be a matter of time.

Good points….

Amicalement
Armand

I think late 1941 early 42 was the turning point.
One kick failed to take soviet russia out.
Hitler refused stalin's offer to negotiate terms.
Usa actively entered the war substantially increasing supplies to the soviets.
The writing was being written on the war for the u boats.
Short term decisions were coming home to roost for jerry.
Over complicated expensive tanks, poor direction of resources, bad decisions on aircraft design and manufacture.
Squandered resources due to corruption.
Mis handling of allies and potential allies.
Hitler doomed the nazis from the start really.

IMO, Germany lost all chances to win when it failed to break the Red Army during Operation Barbarossa.
Hitler & German High Command knew that they had one chance, and one chance only, to beat the Soviets before they brought the ressources of their gigantic countries to bear.
Would capturing Moscow had done it? Or Leningrad?
I don't know, but they had to win in 1941 … or bust.

They had perfectly understood that before launching the campaign, but once Barbarossa & Typhoon failed, they lured themselves into believing that Wunderwaffen or political fanatism could turn the tide …

IMO the Bulge wasted German assets that could have been better used in the defense. So in turn those losses at the Bulge shortened the war if only by a few months.

I believe Germany still had the initiative through most of 1942. They had a larger industrial base under their control than the Soviets did, and a larger population from which to draw military forces. As it was they came within reach of cutting off the great majority of the Soviet Union's oil supplies, if not seizing at least some portion of those supplies for themselves.

Turn the tables vs. the Soviets on petroleum, and 1943 goes very differently on the Eastern Front. A few big battles of encirclement in the East in 1943, and even if the Soviets are not knocked out of the war, they are so much less dangerous of an opponent that Hitler can afford to re-enforce the Western approaches. Another 20 or 30 divisions, some mobile, with a Luftwaffe that has enough fuel to fly (if not enough remaining ace pilots), and D-Day / Normandie can look a lot different.

Too many variables change to make it worthwhile describing detailed predictions. But if we accept a starting point of Germany going to war, it wasn't until they stopped advancing (ie: the end of 1942) that the war turned. And their main objective in 1942 was Russian Oil. They got close, but lost their focus and let is slip away. By the end of the year, as Stalingrad and Tunisia unraveled for the Germans, they had lost their chance.

-Mark
(aka: Mk 1)

D-Day would look a lot different if there were

The Germans went on the offensive in the East in 41, 42 and 43. Interestingly, the objectives shrank every year, from the entire front in 41 to a few hundred miles in 43. In 41 they tried to knock the Russians out of the war, in 42 they tried to seize Soviet oilfields in the South, in 43 they tried to wipe out a bulge in the line.
You could argue that by changing their objective from total victory to economic success in 42 that's when they lost the war, or you could argue that the shift to grand tactical advantage in 43 is when they lost the war, but I think the loss of the ability to affect the battlefield beyond the tactical was the real turning point, which would put the turning point at Kursk.
The Bulge was just a cat in a bag lashing out blindly.