Dan Carlin's Hardcore History Addendum

[Speaker to Animals]

I really wonder if the Germans could have convinced the Anglo world to get on board if the Germans weren't so completely fucking nuts. If you get rid of the "maybe we have to exterminate the Jews" stuff, I don't think there is anything there that Anglos wouldn't be able to live and let live.

[heydaralon]

Rockets
Jet fighters
Possibly anti-gravity technology

Those v2 rockets didnt work that well though. Ive read stuff saying more people died creating them (ie jewish slave labor on the Von Braun V2 project) than died from them being used. Towards the end of the war, Hitler began having delusions that one of his many high tech projects would pan out and change the tide of the war. Germanys economy was such by that point that those projects basically just siphoned money off from the immediate war effort. Not to mention Germany by this point didnt have the money to mass produce any of this shit in a way that would have stopped Russia, Britain, and the US.

You have to account for their complete lack of concern for the labor force, though. They didn't exactly have to adhere to workplace safety standards. They really didn't give a shit if they blew up a few dozen Jews. These projects were run by the SS and the SS didn't even give a fuck about German citizens who were working on those secret programs. If you worked on such a program and were not SS, then you really weren't going to leave the site. They called this kind of person a "bearer of secrets".

Absolutely. All I meant to say is that the V2 was expensive and not terribly effective as a weapon. At that point Germany didnt have the money to make enough of them to change the outcome of the war.

[Speaker to Animals]

Those v2 rockets didnt work that well though. Ive read stuff saying more people died creating them (ie jewish slave labor on the Von Braun V2 project) than died from them being used. Towards the end of the war, Hitler began having delusions that one of his many high tech projects would pan out and change the tide of the war. Germanys economy was such by that point that those projects basically just siphoned money off from the immediate war effort. Not to mention Germany by this point didnt have the money to mass produce any of this shit in a way that would have stopped Russia, Britain, and the US.

You have to account for their complete lack of concern for the labor force, though. They didn't exactly have to adhere to workplace safety standards. They really didn't give a shit if they blew up a few dozen Jews. These projects were run by the SS and the SS didn't even give a fuck about German citizens who were working on those secret programs. If you worked on such a program and were not SS, then you really weren't going to leave the site. They called this kind of person a "bearer of secrets".

Absolutely. All I meant to say is that the V2 was expensive and not terribly effective as a weapon. At that point Germany didnt have the money to make enough of them to change the outcome of the war.

The limitation was in the warhead yield, though, not in the delivery system. They were not far off from atomic bombs before we started strategically hitting their heavy water plants and other facilities we even remotely suspected could be associated with an atomic weapons program. You have to look at the big picture and what these weapons were designed to do. They never achieved that so you are just looking at a piece of the bigger picture.

[heydaralon]

You have to account for their complete lack of concern for the labor force, though. They didn't exactly have to adhere to workplace safety standards. They really didn't give a shit if they blew up a few dozen Jews. These projects were run by the SS and the SS didn't even give a fuck about German citizens who were working on those secret programs. If you worked on such a program and were not SS, then you really weren't going to leave the site. They called this kind of person a "bearer of secrets".

Absolutely. All I meant to say is that the V2 was expensive and not terribly effective as a weapon. At that point Germany didnt have the money to make enough of them to change the outcome of the war.

The limitation was in the warhead yield, though, not in the delivery system. They were not far off from atomic bombs before we started strategically hitting their heavy water plants and other facilities we even remotely suspected could be associated with an atomic weapons program. You have to look at the big picture and what these weapons were designed to do. They never achieved that so you are just looking at a piece of the bigger picture.

If you are broke and fighting a two theater war, Im bot sure that most of your resources should go into R and D. To me, that is not the most immediate concern. I dont think Germany could have won the war ever, and especially not after they declared war on the US. I think they lucked out beating France. Even that could have gone much differently. They had some good scientists no doubt, but alternative history where the Reich won is a bit like the Lost Cause movement in the American South. That is my two cents, and I could be wrong.

[Speaker to Animals]

Absolutely. All I meant to say is that the V2 was expensive and not terribly effective as a weapon. At that point Germany didnt have the money to make enough of them to change the outcome of the war.

The limitation was in the warhead yield, though, not in the delivery system. They were not far off from atomic bombs before we started strategically hitting their heavy water plants and other facilities we even remotely suspected could be associated with an atomic weapons program. You have to look at the big picture and what these weapons were designed to do. They never achieved that so you are just looking at a piece of the bigger picture.

If you are broke and fighting a two theater war, Im bot sure that most of your resources should go into R and D. To me, that is not the most immediate concern. I dont think Germany could have won the war ever, and especially not after they declared war on the US. I think they lucked out beating France. Even that could have gone much differently. They had some good scientists no doubt, but alternative history where the Reich won is a bit like the Lost Cause movement in the American South. That is my two cents, and I could be wrong.

Nah, that's exactly what you do. That's what we did when the Yankees really had us totally out-gunned too. R&D is pretty much all you can do while you still have your economy but it's only a matter of time before the enemy overruns your territory. After that is insurgency.

[GloryofGreece]

In similar respects wasn't Stalin work camps in hindsight viewed as rather under productive when weighed against the resources and men needed to run and guard slave labor than say just having regular workers producing whatever they did instead?

Really what amazes me the most about early 20th century Germany is that it wasn't a unified country"nation" for that long at all, the shear amount of top tier scientist, philosophers, and academics that came out of that area, and that in both world wars they were basically fighting all the other first rate powers. Its fucking insane they did it again less than a generation later.

[Speaker to Animals]

They fucked themselves over by driving the Jewish scientists to America. Those scientists convinced FDR that the bomb is possible, which meant Army It Corps figured out very early how to recognizeanything that could be used for such research, and they bombed that shit asap.

[SuburbanFarmer]

In similar respects wasn't Stalin work camps in hindsight viewed as rather under productive when weighed against the resources and men needed to run and guard slave labor than say just having regular workers producing whatever they did instead?

Really what amazes me the most about early 20th century Germany is that it wasn't a unified country"nation" for that long at all, the shear amount of top tier scientist, philosophers, and academics that came out of that area, and that in both world wars they were basically fighting all the other first rate powers. Its fucking insane they did it again less than a generation later.

That’s probably due to all of those little independent German duchies operating on their own for so long. Instead of having their resources concentrated in a few major cities, there were dozens of them, each with a strong tradition of independence.

[GloryofGreece]

I really wonder if the Germans could have convinced the Anglo world to get on board if the Germans weren't so completely fucking nuts. If you get rid of the "maybe we have to exterminate the Jews" stuff, I don't think there is anything there that Anglos wouldn't be able to live and let live.

They had a good chance of Britain not getting involved in the First World War. Imagine like others have speculated if they sat out that one. Germany conquers all of Europe by 1916ish and there is a Imperial German Empire ruling instead of the Wiemar Republic ravaged by war debt and scorn. No rise of Hitler/no Nazi regime. Hell, then its some pan Germanic coalition against the Soviets. Crazy to ponder the what ifs.

[Speaker to Animals]

Yeah, I too wonder if we took the wrong side in the first one.