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Originally Posted by Slartibartfas
Well, that might be all true, but it does not change my point that conquering Switzerland was of pretty little to no strategical value for the Germans.
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Ok, that's your opinion, but let's see some evidence that this was their view.
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Well, why talking about reigning the world?
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Because
Hitler spoke about world domination.
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Lets start with Europe. I think that was principally a possible task. Even though excluding Russia from this task would have helped a lot.
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Wouldn't have been possible. Look at what it is costing the United States to occupy tiny little Iraq, and they are failing at achieving stability there. The cost of occupying the world would be trillions of dollars. No country could afford it, even with the addition of slave labor.
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The support units where largely horse based indeed, due to a lack of resources to support a fully motorized Wehrmacht. At the very front all the modern stuff was used. For fighting Partisans it would have been stupid to waste ultra modern units, as you did not need heavy arms to fight them, they were of rather little use in fact against them.
Anyway, I am not sure what you argument is here. The German Reich was without any doubt the militarily most powerful country in Europe. The fact that it could lead a war for about 6 years against such a large number of not small enemy countries, should prove this.
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Actually, that doesn't prove that they could have successfully occupied Europe for any significant amount of time. I realize we're both involved in speculation here, but my only provable point here is that the Germans weren't as powerful as history paints them out to be. Germany simply could not mass produce enough equipment to successfully occupy Europe for any significant amount of time.
The United States could mass produce "BIG IRON." And this was a major reason why the Allies won the war.
From the Early Warning Report of October 2006 by Richard Maybury:
"In World War II, one of the most famous German
tank units was the fearsome Panzer Lehr Division. On
the morning of July 25, 1944, Panzer Lehr was in the
path of Allied forces moving eastward across France
near St. Lo.
Panzer Lehr had 2,200 men and 45 operational tanks.
The Allied attack on Panzer Lehr began with waves
of P-47 Thunderbolt fighters, fifty at a time. Every two
minutes a wave would sweep across Panzer Lehr,
dropping a hurricane of napalm.
The P-47s departed, and were replaced by waves of
medium bombers dropping 500-pound bombs.
After the medium bombers were through, the
surviving Germans heard 1,500 heavy four-engine B-17
and B-24 bombers. Try to imagine the sound of 6,000
engines headed directly at you.
The B-17s and B-24s laid a carpet of bombs across
Panzer Lehr, churning the earth into a landscape of
craters and wreckage; 55-ton tanks were thrown into the
air, landing in pieces upside down.
After the heavy bombers departed, another 300 P-38
Lightning fighters swept across the remnants of Panzer
Lehr, dropping incendiaries and anti-personnel fragmentation
bombs.
Then hundreds of artillery pieces opened up. After
them, battalions of Allied tanks came in.
The 45 tanks of Panzer Lehr had been attacked by
more than 2,000 planes.
In war as in peace, humans have two general ways to
get things done — use labor, or capital. To destroy
Panzer Lehr, US generals could have sent legions of
troops, and suffered hundreds of casualties. Instead
they used machinery.
Labor vs. Capital on the Battlefield
Ever since the Civil War, which was the world’s first
industrial war, the US armed forces have always chosen
“big iron” over body bags. Big iron is expensive, but
the American taxpayer has been willing to pay for it.
A World War II four-engine B-24 bomber contained
1.5 million parts. Henry Ford’s Willow Run plant
turned out one B-24 every 63 minutes.
A total of 18,188 B-24s were built at all aircraft
plants, in addition to 12,729 B-17s and 3,970 B-29s.
That’s a total of 34,887 four-engine heavy bombers.
The number of four-engine heavy bombers put into
the air by technological pipsqueaks Germany and Japan
together was 204. Their gadget shops produced impressive
inventions, but these little countries had sparse
ability to mass produce them.
Of the 46 divisions Hitler had in France in 1941, 1.5
were mechanized; the other 44.5 were foot soldiers and
horses. When the Americans invaded Normandy in
June 1944, the entire US military force was mechanized;
the Germans were dependent on 1.25 million
horses.
The most powerful and decisive weapon of World
War II (and still today) was the aircraft carrier. The
Germans tried to build one, but failed to solve the
technical problems. The Americans built 146 carriers
in 44 months. Laid end-to-end, they’d stretch 17
miles end - to-end, total US tanks built in WWII would
stretch 300 miles.
Wingtip to wingtip, total planes, 3,600 miles.
At any given moment, the average Japanese soldier
deployed in the Pacific was accompanied by two
pounds of supplies. The American, four tons.
Generals Patton, MacArthur, Eisenhower and their
associates have received the credit, but it was really
General Motors, General Dynamics and Rosie the
Riveter who buried the enemy — under a Himalaya of
US hardware.
Washington’s amazing ratio of capital to labor is
why less than 1% of the people killed in World War II
were Americans."
Link
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My Grandfather who fought himself on the east Front said to himself during the war, that if there is a god in heave, Germany has to loose this war.... and he fought for the Wehrmacht.
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Interesting story. Thanks.
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Of course they could succeed in certain things and of course they could weaken them and be a pain in the ass. But they could not stop a large army in full move.
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Right, but they could still thwart stability and control after the invasion moved in. That's the real issue with occupation. This increases the costs for the occupying nation.
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He might have liked to have seen Switzerland being part of the Reich at some point in the future, but that clearly had time and was no priority at all
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Again, I'm looking for verifiable historical evidence of this.