I never understand why Krigersmarine don't request they terms from France

[Wolf359]

I never understand one thing from WW2 history:hmm:: When Germany conquer France and make capitulation/surrender agreement with it why Krigersmarine don't request they terms from France?

1. request absoluteness surrender of ALL THEY NAVAL FORCES, NAVAL BASES and PERSONAL
2. ALL they ships become PROPERTY OF KRIGERSMARINE
3. ALL THESE SHIPS GET NEW CREWS (from Krigersmarine) and new CAPTAINS

With France Ships and bases in they hands KM can defeat Royal navy forces on Mediterranean and cut out main British supply lines for North Africa Gibraltar, Malta, Crete, Greece and give General Rommel chances to destroy they land forces in North Africa and take a Cairo, Suez, and Middle East.

[Wolf359]

Here is some data about size of France navy:

Major ships of the French Navy at the beginning of German attack in May 1940:

* modern battleships: 2 (plus 1 in last stadium of fiting out)
* old battleships - dreadnoughts: 5 (including 2 training ones)
* aircraft carriers: 1
* seaplane carriers: 1
* heavy cruisers: 6
* light cruisers: 11
* big destroyers: 32
* destroyers: 26
* submarines: 77

Apart from these, there was one modern battleship advanced in construction; the second battleship, one aircraft carrier, numerous submarines and several destroyers were in different stages of construction.
I think that they can been good reinforcement for Krigersmarine...

[moscowexile]

Because Hitler believed that the United Kingdom and the British Empire were the natural allies of Fascist Germany and would eventually join the Fascists in their crusade against the "Mongol-Tatar" (read as: Untermenschen, i.e. subhumans) Bolshevik hordes, which hordes were controlled by Jews, as was international finance capital, all of which was part of a Jewish plot to subjugate non-Jewish people, including the "Aryan" race, and to hold the world in thrall to Jewry.

That was Herr Hitler's theory, anyway. (Not mine, I may add!)

Hitler believed that Germany could carve out an empire in the east to create "living space" (Lebensraum) for the German Folk, just as "England" had carved out for itself an overseas world empire.

Small problem: the Lebensraum was occupied by Slavic peoples. No matter: they were all subhumans, anyway; if Darwin's theory was correct, only the fittest would survive in the struggle for survival. The Aryans under German leadership, according to Hitler (and many others, including a large number of Englishmen and Frenchmen), were the supreme race and should win any struggle hands down.

Hitler couldn't understand why the UK declared war on Germany on September 3rd 1939.

To defend Poland?

How?

What for?

Hitler believed that he could come to an accomodation with the United Kingdom over his plans in Eastern Europe, which deal would run something like: if you let us play ball in the East and thereby do mankind a service eradicating the Jewish-Bolshevik virus there and, at the same time, setting up a huge German land empire stretching to the Urals, we'll let you keep your maritime Empire.

To keep an overseeas empire, however, Britain needed a huge fleet: that's how the Royal Navy came about. Ever since the end of Buonaparte's plan to make a French European hegemony, Britain had had a policy of maintaining a fleet that was at least twice the size of the next two biggest fleets combined. Any nation state that attempted to challenge British naval supremacy was deemed by British governments to be enemies, real or potential.

That's why the UK went to war with the German Empire in August 1914: the declaration of war made by the British goverment against the German Reich on August 3rd 1914 was not the result of the violation of Belgian neutrality by the German army in marching on Paris (that was just a propaganda trick to attain a position of moral supremacy) it was because German hegemony in Europe and the German Imperial fleet would be real threat to the "balance of power" that Britain enjoyed.

Hitler believed that Kaiser Wilhelm II had made a serious error in provoking the UK with his warship building policy and his demands that the arriviste German Empire have a "place in the sun". If the UK had not been provoked by Kaiser Bill's naval policy, it could well have been that the German army would have wiped the floor with the French (as they had done during the course of 6 weeks in 1870-1871) and the Russians would have then been dealt with accordingly and would have sued for peace.

If only this had happened! A quick German victory in the west followed by a negotiated peace with the Russian Empire would have meant no Bolshevik "revolution", no shameful Versailles Treaty terms for a defeated Germany, no fascists, no World War II.

If, after the fall of France in 1940 the French navy had been absorbed by the Kriegsmarine, that would have signalled that the THird Reich intended to destroy the British and their Empire. Hitler never wanted this, hence the hands-off policy towards the French navy. Hitler waited for peace overtures from the UK and a negotiated peace in the west, followed by his crusade to the east.

If Churchill had not been Prime Minister and Halifax had (he almost was), Hitler would have probably got what he wanted.

The British response was to ask the French navy to amalgamate with the Royal Navy. The French would not comply, so the British attacked the French capital ships that had sought refuge in Algerian French bases, which attack was a clear signal from Churchill to Hitler that there was going to be no deal between the UK and Germany.

The sad result of all this is that more French sailors died during WWII at the hands of the British than of the Germans.

[Pablo]

Originally Posted by moscowexile

To keep an overseeas empire, however, Britain needed a huge fleet: that's how the Royal Navy came about.

I'd always understood that Britain needed a huge fleet because it other people (Saxons, Danes, Normans, various royal factions) had been landing or trying to invade from the end of the Roman Empire up through the Spanish Armada. As an island nation with a relatively small population, the fleet had been its best defense against invasion against invasion by the large land armies of countries such as Imperial Spain or Napoleonic France since Elizabethan times. A fleet big enough to defend the homeland against invasion was also big enough to do some serious exploring, colonizing, and defense of the colonial sea lanes.

Ever since the end of Buonaparte's plan to make a French European hegemony, Britain had had a policy of maintaining a fleet that was at least twice the size of the next two biggest fleets combined. Any nation state that attempted to challenge British naval supremacy was deemed by British governments to be enemies, real or potential.

That's why the UK went to war with the German Empire in August 1914: the declaration of war made by the British goverment against the German Reich on August 3rd 1914 was not the result of the violation of Belgian neutrality by the German army in marching on Paris (that was just a propaganda trick to attain a position of moral supremacy) it was because German hegemony in Europe and the German Imperial fleet would be real threat to the "balance of power" that Britain enjoyed.

I'm not so sure. The other part of British strategy was indeed that no hegemonic European power could be allowed to control the coasts of what are now Belgium and the Netherlands; however, absent the provocation of Germany's invasion of Belgium and Belgium's decision to resist the Germans, a declaration of war on Germany would have bitterly divided the people and Parliament, which had no interest in sending British soldiers to die for France (with whom they had no treaty or alliance) in the slaughter of a general European war over Serbia, but they were willing to defend their commitment to Belgian neutrality. It wasn't just a progaganda trick.

Without the invasion of Belgium, I think it's pretty likely Britain would not have intervened in August 1914, just as it had not intervened in the Franco-Prussian War, when Bismarck specifically assured Prime Minister Disraeli that Germany would not attack Belgium. The German General Staff knew attacking Belgium would bring Britain into the war, but they just didn't care since they felt its army's contribution would be minimal at best. Oops.

Hitler believed that Kaiser Wilhelm II had made a serious error in provoking the UK with his warship building policy and his demands that the arriviste German Empire have a "place in the sun". If the UK had not been provoked by Kaiser Bill's naval policy, it could well have been that the German army would have wiped the floor with the French (as they had done during the course of 6 weeks in 1870-1871) and the Russians would have then been dealt with accordingly and would have sued for peace.

I think the effect of Kaiser Wilhelm's (or rather, Admiral Tirpitz's) naval policy was that it caused Britain to reconsider its centuries-old enmity for France in the face of German weltmacht, for no appreciable gain to Germany, rather than actually provoking Britain into declaring war. I suppose Germany's real problem was that they needed a first-class strategic thinker, like Bismarck, but all they could manage was Kaiser Billy.

There's a reasonably good recounting of all this in Robert K. Massie's book, Dreadnought: Britain, Germany, and the coming of the Great War, which is currently in paperback at Amazon.com.

Pablo

[moscowexile]

When I said that the British Empire was the raison d'etre of the Royal Navy, I had in mind the twice-as-big-as-the-next-two-combined-fleets navy patrolling the sinews of British seaborne free enterpise trade and not King Harold the Great of Wessex's or Elizabeth I's wooden walls.


'We are entering a general European conflict because of German beastliness in its rape of poor little Belgium" was the cry of the British government in August 1914 and I still maintain that it was largely propagandist in nature: witness the British political cartoons of the time. Furthermore, Britain's noble defence of Belgium neutrality in 1914 was contradicted somewhat by the Salonika expedition of 1915 when French and British forces landed in Greece in order to bolster up Serbia by attacking Bulgaria. In that year, Serbia, whilst having bravely defended herself against the Austro-Hungarian Empire (the Serbs suffered the greatest losses in relation to population size of any participant in World War I), faced imminent defeat after having been attacked by Bulgaria, which had joined the Central Powers in order to expand, at Serbia's expense, in the Balkans. Problem was: Greece was neutral. Lloyd George disingeniously argued at the time that "there was no comparison between going through Greece and the German passage through Belgium."

The all too prescient Jackie Fisher hit the nail right on the head at the beginning of the 20th century when asked for a possible date for the outbreak of a general European conflict: his answer was that a general European war would start when the Kiel canal had been widened to facilitate the passage of dreadnoughts. He was almost spot on in his prediction. The canal widening began in 1907: it was completed in June 1914. A Royal Navy squadron was invited to the re-opening of the widened canal by Kaiser Wilhelm II, a grandson of Queen Victoria. The celebrations were cut short by the announcement of the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand, heir to the Hapsburg Empire, in Sarajevo by a Serbian nationalist.

The Royal Navy squadron promptly left Kiel to take up war stations. On leaving Kiel the squadron signalled to the Kaiser and his fleet: Friends today; friends in future; friends forever.

How tragic!

[Pablo]

Originally Posted by moscowexile

When I said that the British Empire was the raison d'etre of the Royal Navy, I had in mind the twice-as-big-as-the-next-two-combined-fleets navy patrolling the sinews of British seaborne free enterpise trade and not King Harold the Great of Wessex's or Elizabeth I's wooden walls.

Hi!

My point was that the Royal Navy's raison d'etre was to protect Britain from invasion, long before there was a British Empire. The Empire came about because of British naval superiority, not the other way 'round.

'We are entering a general European conflict because of German beastliness in its rape of poor little Belgium" was the cry of the British government in August 1914 and I still maintain that it was largely propagandist in nature: witness the British political cartoons of the time.

Hmm... You might want to review Foreign Minister Grey's speech to Parliament on August 3, 1914, where he outlined why a German attack on Belgium would be sufficient reason to enter the war against Germany, and the Parliament agreed.

Furthermore, Britain's noble defence of Belgium neutrality in 1914 was contradicted somewhat by the Salonika expedition of 1915 when French and British forces landed in Greece in order to bolster up Serbia by attacking Bulgaria. In that year, Serbia, whilst having bravely defended herself against the Austro-Hungarian Empire (the Serbs suffered the greatest losses in relation to population size of any participant in World War I), faced imminent defeat after having been attacked by Bulgaria, which had joined the Central Powers in order to expand, at Serbia's expense, in the Balkans. Problem was: Greece was neutral. Lloyd George disingeniously argued at the time that "there was no comparison between going through Greece and the German passage through Belgium."

Actually, Lloyd George was correct: the troops landed in Salonika at the request of the pro-Allied Greek Prime Minister, Elefthérios Venizélos. It is true that Greece was not of one mind on this question, since King Constantine I was pro-German, and that the resulting disagreement and all that followed is known in Greece as the "National Schism" (Εθνικός Διχασμός, Ethnikos Dikhasmos), but the offer was made by the Prime Minister and legitimate head of government.

The all too prescient Jackie Fisher hit the nail right on the head at the beginning of the 20th century when asked for a possible date for the outbreak of a general European conflict: his answer was that a general European war would start when the Kiel canal had been widened to facilitate the passage of dreadnoughts. He was almost spot on in his prediction. The canal widening began in 1907: it was completed in June 1914. A Royal Navy squadron was invited to the re-opening of the widened canal by Kaiser Wilhelm II, a grandson of Queen Victoria. The celebrations were cut short by the announcement of the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand, heir to the Hapsburg Empire, in Sarajevo by a Serbian nationalist.

The Royal Navy squadron promptly left Kiel to take up war stations. On leaving Kiel the squadron signalled to the Kaiser and his fleet: Friends today; friends in future; friends forever.

It was my understanding that the Royal Navy's Second Battle Squadron left Kiel to continue its scheduled cruise through the Baltic, and returned to Britain for the annual royal review by King George V on July 20, followed by fleet exercises. The Royal Navy did not begin moving to its war stations (i.e., Scapa Flow) until July 28-29, after Austria had publicly rejected Serbia's response to its ultimatum and was mobilizing for war.

Pablo

[Anton88]

Originally Posted by moscowexile

Hitler believed that Germany could carve out an empire in the east to create "living space" (Lebensraum) for the German Folk, just as "England" had carved out for itself an overseas world empire.

Its true and I have a quote where he says "Russia will be our India", - meaning what India was to the British Empire , Russia will be for us..

I have a question to you since you are in Russia and may know things better....-
Do you believe that the attack on the Soviet Union - Barbarossa was a pre-emptive strike? Was Stalin and the Red Army prepared for war and about to invade Germany? And if so - would they have any chance to defeat Germany plus her allies on the European mainland?

I have my own theories,
but I find it hard to believe that the Soviet soldier of 1939-1940 who could not even beat Finland could defeat a Powerful Germany that ruled the whole continent.

I think the only thing that could destroy the III Reich was a war with Russia in Russia.

He went to the East expecting a quick victory, with no winter clothing no nothing.. He ended up loosing 80% of his Soldiers.
(8 out of 10 Wehrmacht soldiers were killed in Russia or in fighting Russian soldiers) and then loosing the war.

"In 28 days the German Army conquered Poland" - in Stalingrad in 28 days the German Army was only able to conquer a few houses"
In 38 days the German Army conquered France, - in Stalingrad in 38 days the German Army was only able to move from one side of the street to the other"...

Sweden, France and now Germany have destroyed themselves as world power by invading Russia.

[et1sw1064]

WOLF359,
I have read through the posts, maybe I missed something but I didn't see anyone answer your questions. If I missed it i am sorry for repeating here.

When France surrendered, Raeder wanted the French Fleet.

Hitler was afraid if he made demands to have the French Fleet surrender to him they would defect to Great Britain. There by adding their strength to the British Fleet.

Another reason is he did not wish to further antagonize the British and was still hopeful for peace with them.

As far as the French scuttling their Capital Ships in Toulon, that happened when the Germans tried to capture them in November of 1942 after the allies landed in North Africa.

[kroll688]

french sweeper, many thanks for sharing the pictures, it is these small pieces of history that I find very exciting, the putting together of large events into context of people and their lives / stories.

[U777]

Originally Posted by Anton88

Its true and I have a quote where he says "Russia will be our India", - meaning what India was to the British Empire , Russia will be for us..

I have a question to you since you are in Russia and may know things better....-
Do you believe that the attack on the Soviet Union - Barbarossa was a pre-emptive strike? Was Stalin and the Red Army prepared for war and about to invade Germany? And if so - would they have any chance to defeat Germany plus her allies on the European mainland?

I have my own theories,
but I find it hard to believe that the Soviet soldier of 1939-1940 who could not even beat Finland could defeat a Powerful Germany that ruled the whole continent.

I think the only thing that could destroy the III Reich was a war with Russia in Russia.

He went to the East expecting a quick victory, with no winter clothing no nothing.. He ended up loosing 80% of his Soldiers.
(8 out of 10 Wehrmacht soldiers were killed in Russia or in fighting Russian soldiers) and then loosing the war.



Sweden, France and now Germany have destroyed themselves as world power by invading Russia.

Looking at the map Stalingrad seems to be a bit more eastward than Moscow so tactically I think it would make more sense to go straight for Moscow but since the city held Stalin's name Hitler wanted to win there bad before hostilities were to end with Russia I guess. Thankfully the Russians knew how to fight in cold weather, that gave them a major advantage. I guess moral of the story is don't invade Russia if you can't finish the job by the end of fall, Napoleon learned the hard way too.

For those who want to read a German's perspective of the eastern front read "Tigers in the Mud" by Otto Carius. He was a Panzer commander who fought with Tiger tanks against the Russians.

[Dread Knot]

Originally Posted by U777

Looking at the map Stalingrad seems to be a bit more eastward than Moscow so tactically I think it would make more sense to go straight for Moscow but since the city held Stalin's name Hitler wanted to win there bad before hostilities were to end with Russia I guess. Thankfully the Russians knew how to fight in cold weather, that gave them a major advantage. I guess moral of the story is don't invade Russia if you can't finish the job by the end of fall, Napoleon learned the hard way too.

For those who want to read a German's perspective of the eastern front read "Tigers in the Mud" by Otto Carius. He was a Panzer commander who fought with Tiger tanks against the Russians.

In June 1942, when the Germans renewed their offensive in Russia the two goals were the Baku oil fields in the Caucasus and the city of Stalingrad. The idea was to cut Moscow and the rest of Russia off from it's main oil supply (The main rail and river links to Baku run through Stalingrad). Ultimately, the Germans didn't have the strength or the logistical capability for both goals and stalled in the Caucasus Mountains well short of Baku and found themselves foundering in a frontal (and attritional) attack on Stalingrad. At the time the approaches to Moscow were well fortified and defended by the bulk of the ever-growing Red Army as Stalin expected Hitler would try for Moscow again. The Germans didn't have the strength to make a push along the entire front. As it was, due to heavy losses in the previous winter, they had to cannibalize those northern divisions that didn't take part in the Caucasus drive of their trucks and motorized vehicles to make the 1942 offensive possible at all. They also had to rely on their weaker Rumanian and Hugarian allies to cover their lengthening front which contributed to the Stalingrad disaster, as these troops with low morale and little anti-tank capability were easily overrun by Soviet tanks in the open steppes in winter.

[Obltn Strand]

Originally Posted by U777

Thankfully the Russians knew how to fight in cold weather, that gave them a major advantage.

Germans approached finns in winter -41-42 to inquire how to maintain fighting capability in winter. Initial response was that every soldier is to put on every piece of clothing he posesses, regardeless are they standard issue or not. Germans complained that military dicipline and protocol are to be maintained. Finns responded that russians will create some activity to keep germans exposed if troops are known to lack winter clothing. Thus freezing them slowly.

Source never tells if germans heeded our advice.

[Hottentot]

Originally Posted by Anton88

Do you believe that the attack on the Soviet Union - Barbarossa was a pre-emptive strike? Was Stalin and the Red Army prepared for war and about to invade Germany? And if so - would they have any chance to defeat Germany plus her allies on the European mainland?

I'm not the one you asked from, but I have read something on the subject. As far as I know, this has been speculated but never really proven. Then again, it tends to be so in history that you can consider something proven by something and yet someone will "prove" you are wrong. Unanimous points of view tend to be rare, but I think the majority of the researchers don't believe in this theory. I think Viktor Suvorov is the most prominent supporter of this theory, but I haven't read any of his books, so I can't say how good or bad they are.

As for what I believe myself: Stalin saw enemies everywhere and that wasn't only due to his paranoia. His whole "socialism in one country" on the contrary to Marx's and Lenin's ideal of world revolution was fundamentally an attempt to make Soviet Union a strong nation that could hold its own against foreign invasion. The Soviet Union was preparing for a war already in the end of 1920s and that was a major point in the industrialization campaign of the early 1930s.

Stalin certainly expected Hitler, or someone else for that matter, to attack at some point. That is why he first ended his policy of semi-isolation with the Western countries and sought collective security from the League of nations. When the Spanish civil war began, however, he became disappointed when apparently his new friends didn't react strongly enough. So he concluded that if the Germans attacked Eastern Europe, he couldn't count on the help of them there either. Hence the non-aggression treaty to buy time.

And this is where it becomes mere speculation. If Stalin was preparing for a war for a long time, and not only against Germany, it is possible that he eventually wanted to make a "pre-emptive strike" himself. But I don't think in 1941. He had only recently consolidated his power as the absolute ruler of the party and the state in 1936 - 1938. The second five year plan had to abandon some of its great dreams just to fix what the first one left undone. The third one had been started, yes, but it is questionable how much it could have achieved, if it hadn't been interrupted by Hitler's invasion. All in all I think Soviet Union wasn't by then ready for an offensive war, but functioned well for a defensive one. And I think Stalin knew that too. Being one of the most notorious dictators of the 20th century isn't synonymous to being stupid.

[3Jane]

As I understand it the ships at Toulon were scuttled as the Germans were arriving. Also, the Bristish shelled other elements of the French fleet to prevent them falling into German hands. But I'm not certain as to the sequence of events.

[Catfish]

Hello,
well i'm speechless. The more i read in the last years the more i come to what Moscowexile writes - not only about the "Lebensraum" in the east, slavic people and the jews, which is already well-known.

But also about the first world war, why it happened, and that what happened directly led to WW2, is an on-the-point description i never read before.

I would as well describe WW1 as a war of the monachies and their interests, after all Germany declared war to Serbia because of its treaty with Austro-Hungary - with all the known effects. Kaiser Wilhelm must have been surprized about the close-related England with his own royal relatives declaring war at "him" - after all he was a son of Queen Victoria. Indeed after France declared war the french armies tried to get back the region in the Alsace region before the war in northern France began.

Greetings,
Catfish