When that story happened(good read) Stigler was flying an ME109, not a 262.

quote:

Franz Stigler

Fuck Hitler, there was no "game changer" that "could have" won the war for Germany. Hitler was crazy, you cant win with crazy.

Non-crazy would have taken back the land lost after WW1 from Russia and been happy with that. And been a non-communist buffer between Russia and the West. But, as stated, he was crazy. All the U-boats, 262's, and V weapons would not have helped, just maybe prolonged the war.

quote:

Originally posted by Hound Dog:
My theory is that Stalin was fixing to invade Germany. Hitler just moved first.

Nazism and Soviet communism (as were Hitler and Stalin) were mutually exclusive. War between the two was inevitable, IMO.

History is on your side. Stalin wouldmhave invaded Germany by mid 1943 if the Geramans hadn't attacked first.

quote:

Originally posted by valkyrie1:
When that story happened(good read) Stigler was flying an ME109, not a 262.

Yes, that's true. I have a couple artists' renditions of the encounter. He was the bombadier, Andrews was his name. He was flying a 109 during this event, but survived to be a 262 pilot, and survived the war. Sorry if I gave the wrong impression about his plane at the time.

quote:

Originally posted by SgtGold:

quote:

Originally posted by Hound Dog:
My theory is that Stalin was fixing to invade Germany. Hitler just moved first.

Nazism and Soviet communism (as were Hitler and Stalin) were mutually exclusive. War between the two was inevitable, IMO.

History is on your side. Stalin wouldmhave invaded Germany by mid 1943 if the Geramans hadn't attacked first.

Yes, I believe there is documentation of a plan for invasion.

I read a book written by a former intelligence officer in the Russian army who made a convincing argument that Stalin was planning to invade Germany and appear as a liberator of Europe when Hitler beat him to the punch.The author claims that Stalin, in order to gain sympathy and support from the Allies, acted as Germany's loyal ally who was completely shocked and surprised by Hitler's betrayal. Stalin had intelligence reports that Germany had plans to invade for months but he delayed his own invasion plans, in the hope that the fighting between Britain and Germany would be prolonged.

There are a huge number of "What would have happened if Hitler had done/not done" X. My favorite is this.

What if on Dec 8th, 1941 Hitler double crossed the Japanese, and refused to declare war on the US. He could have issues a statement something like "We denoounce the barbarous acts of the dastardly Japanese, and wish our American friends the best of luck in defeating them" Roosevelt, who was DYING to get in war in Europe would have no choice but to put all thue US's efforts into fight the Japanese, and would have no pretext to joining the European war. England would not have been in position to invade the continent alone (even with commonwealth help.) Hitler could have probably strangled England at sea, or at least kept them isolated, and concentrated all it's land forces on the eastern front. Could the Soviets have beaten him without the western front? Maybe, but I'm skeptical.