What was the tipping point for Nazi defeat in WW2?

davidg32

The two biggest tipping points were attacking the Soviets, and declaring war on the United States immediately after Pearl Harbor. If they had not done either of those, Nazi Germany would still control most of Europe. The US would probably have let them know (through diplomatic channels) that we would not tolerate an invasion of Britain, and would have entered the war to stop it, so I don't think England would have been conquered. But they'd sure as hell still have France, the Benelux countries, and most of Scandinavia.

Cole Cooperâ„¢

They expanded to quickly. They didn't have the forces to defend and supply the fronts because it was too large. Not to mention they tried to take on the world....

Richard C

When the Eastern Campaign bogged down and ultimately failed.....it needed the industrial structure of the Soviet Union to keep feeding its war machine and failed to obtain that crucial prize.

greencoke

Deciding to attack Russia.

brownieleslie

Definitely the invasion of the USSR. Russia historically is a tough nut to crack and the Nazis did not have the resources to manage a two-front war. Their soldiers were utterly unprepared for the harsh winters and Germany did not have anywhere near the manpower the Soviets did.

dude.

Their biggest mistake was attacking Russia,
Their second mistake was not subduing Britain.

Atavacron

Opening the Russian front. Had that not happened Hitler could have held the majority of Europe. Stalin wouldn't have been a threat for years to come.

funcused18

the minute they entered Russia, they began losing the war, before that they hadn't lost a single battle. after Stalingrad they rarely won another one.

chappye7

Stalingrad was the turning point for both the Allies and Germans. Had Hitler let his generals shorten there front line and dug in for the winter, 1943 would have been the Soviets last year of existence.

tercelclub

Operation Barbarossa; the invasion of Russia; they were ill-prepared to face the gritty Soviet winter and lost thousands of soldiers in that operations, specially in Kursk and Stalingrad; afterwards, the Russians went on the advanced and did not stop until they reached Berlin and burned it to the ground.

Another great blunder for the Germans was Operation Overlord (D-Day); they ignored the obvious assault on Normandy and focused on the short route into Calais, which was a ruse designed by the Allied Forces to steer the Germans away from Normandy, where the real landings were made.

Living In Korea

I believe you mean Turning Point -

The failure during the Battle of Stalingrad is considered the turning point of the War, against the Germans.

Its not me Its u

The war was up for grabs in the Fall of 1942, after the winter on the banks of the Volga, the end result was no longer in doubt...

Stalingrad was only significant if the Germans lost, which they did. The Soviets destroyed the 6th Army, which, in turn, forced the other half of Army Group South (engaged in capturing the Caucasus and Baku oil fields) to withdraw to the north-west to regroup and form a new defensinve line. The failure to capture the oil fields cut off the Axis powers from any hope of finding a large enough fuel source to continue an effective war, essentially sealing their fate with that of the 6th Army.

If the Soviets lost, the war was not lost as they had plenty of room to retreat further into the hinterland. Their resources in manpower, tanks, war factories, etc., meant they would've enventually won the war by sheer weight of numbers.

From that point onward the Germans lost the strategic offensive. The outcome of the war was still up for grabs after the defeat at the gates of Moscow, but after Stalingrad, it was all but over. The localized battles at Kursk, D-Day and the Battle of the Bulge were fought when the outcome was no longer in doubt. The loss of the Sixth Army, men and material, was something the Wehrmact never recovered from.

In scope, the Battle of the Bulge did not compare to Stalingrad, not in the number of deaths (38,000 to 1.8 million) or significance. Prior to Stalingrad, the outcome of the war was still in doubt. Prior to the Bulge, there was no question as to the outcome, all it did was waste Germany's last reserves that could've been used to stem the Red Army tide in the east; instead it accelerated their end.

teacher

Operation Barbarossa. When the Germans invaded Russia. From that moment the war was over. It opened 2 fronts which the Germans couldn't handle. If it wasn't for that they could have concentrated on 1 front and probably won the war.

mar036

When they initially declared war in 1939, it weas the beginning of the end, they should have learned their lesson from WW I

2009=Age Of Orton

The Battle of Britain

tttplttttt

When all the allied countries finally committed themselves as one to clean up the world and do whatever it took.

I don't think it will ever happen again.

Kookiemon

The critical failure occurred when Germany violated the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact they had signed with the Soviet Union. The pact involved the Soviet Union supplying Germany with raw materials and that Germany would divide Eastern Europe with the Soviet Union. This pact practically guaranteed Germany could conquer all of Western Europe without having to fight a battle on two fronts. Unfortunately for Germany, Hitler wanted Western Russia and reneged on the pact.

http://www.lituanus.org/1989/89_1_03.htm

The only reason the US joined the war was to limit Soviet expansion into Eastern Europe since it was obvious, at the time the US joined the war, that Germany was going to lose the battle on their Eastern front.

open4one

The failure of the Battle of Britain.

Had that succeeded, there would have been no place from which to launch the invasion of Normandy. "Fortress Europa" would have been complete, and they could have turned their undivided attention on Russia. As close as they got to taking Russia, the few extra divisions might have changed the outcome.

Time was always againt the Germans. Russia had superiority in numbers, and the US had superior production once it got rolling.

vanamont7

Not much, really. It was military adventurism from the start the German High Command, as well as Hitler, recognize was doomed from the start.

Fundamentally the Wehrmacht went into battle an undefeated army as of World War One.

Let's face it, when you're fighting the world's armies at large by yourself, and heavy reenforcements come in later on for the other side, you are bound to lose.

Really a no brainer.

Barry auh2o

They committed the ultimate blunder, Hitler wouldn't let his generals make the military decisions.

morgan j

You've already listed critical errors. One not listed was the order from Hitler switching the luftwaffe's focus from destroying the RAF to bombing London. Had he permitted just one more week of raids against airfields the RAF would have collapsed. Then he could have invaded England before the US entered the war.

The other failure was Operation Barbarosa, invading Russia. Only one country could fight a war on two fronts at that time, and that was the US.

ALASPADA

Basically it was 1942 when the Nazi's were being stopped in North Africa and also they were grounding to a stop in the Soviet Union.

Zap

I would have to say the turning point of the WWII was when Germany attacked Russia. By creating two fronts, the German's spread themselves too thin and simply lacked the resources to secure the Mediterranean and consequently made it impossible for them to subdue Britain.

Jerry

There was no single point that was the tipping point, the war was lost from the onset. Germany never took Britain. Ignoring that the Germans never completely killed the resistance in France.

It might have taken a lot longer for Germany to lose world war II if they had not split their fronts or if they had launched a land invasion of england, but the failure of the Germans in WWII was that they started WWII.

supermandingowarrior

the A-Bomb We Taught they ***!

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