Following their victory in north Africa, the allies had landed in Sicily on 10 July to be greeted in Palermo by Italian citizens waving white flags. A fortnight later, reflecting the evaporation of Italy's will to fight on, the Fascist Grand Coalition deposed Mussolini and began to sue for peace.
On 3 September an armistice was signed, and allied forces landed on the Italian mainland. German troops had already invaded from the north, taking over the entire peninsula.
Following the armistice, they seized , Italian soldiers and shipped them off to Germany as forced labourers to join millions of others drafted in from Poland and the Soviet Union to replace German workers sent to the front to replenish the Wehrmacht's rapidly diminishing manpower.
But as the allied armies made their way slowly northwards towards Rome, nothing could disguise the fact that Germany's principal ally had now been defeated. These events had a devastating effect on German morale at home. In particular the catastrophe of Stalingrad began to convince many Germans that the war could not be won.
Worse was to come. Meeting at Casablanca in January , Churchill and Roosevelt decided on a sustained campaign of bombing German cities. A series of massive raids on the industrial area of the Ruhr followed, backed up by the destruction of key dams by the famous "bouncing bombs" on 16 May Arms production was severely affected. And in late July and early August , the centre of Hamburg was almost completely destroyed in a firestorm created by intensive incendiary bombing that killed up to 40, people, injured a further ,, many of them seriously, and made , homeless.
Refugees from the devastated city spread a sense of shock and foreboding all across Germany. In Hamburg itself, anger at the Nazis' failure to defend the city led to crowds tearing party badges off officials' coats amid cries of "murderer!
German air defences were still able to inflict serious losses on allied bombing expeditions, but they were not strong enough to prevent the devastation continuing. By the end of , German forces were retreating all along the line in the east and in Italy. The spectacle of German defeat and the brutal requisitioning of millions of forced labourers from occupied countries fuelled the rise of resistance movements right across Europe.
The Reich had lost command of the skies and the seas. Ever more devastating bombing raids on a growing range of towns and cities were making people's lives unbearable. Ordinary Germans knew by the end of that the war was lost. Terror began to replace commitment as a means of keeping people fighting on. More than 20, German troops were executed by courts-martial during the war for varieties of defeatism. At home, people faced a similar escalation of terror from the Nazi party and the SS.
Retreating into their private and family worlds, they began to focus increasingly on simply staying alive and waiting for the end. Richard J Evans is regius professor of modern history at Cambridge University.
Why Hitler's grand plan during the second world war collapsed. Two key factors undermined Germany's campaign: US involvement boosted the allies' arms-producing capabilities, while sheer Soviet manpower led to catastrophic defeat in Russia. Russian women carrying supplies to the troops at Stalingrad.
US military might But by the end of the Reich had to contend not only with the arms production of the British empire and the Soviet Union but also with the rapidly growing military might of the world's economic superpower, the United States. Battle of the Atlantic But from December , the British could decode German ciphers once more and steer their convoys away from the waiting wolf-packs of U-boats.
With Stalingrad behind them, the Germans now stagger on towards the oilfields of Baku in the Caucasus, one of the main objectives of their summer offensive into southern Russia, known as Case Blue. However, the Soviets destroy the oil production facilities during their retreat. In all likelihood, it will take the Germans somewhere between years to repair these facilities and have them producing the fuel that the mechanised Nazi war machine so desperately craves. Even if the Germans can get the oilfields up and running quicker than a year, their already overstretched supply lines will be pushed to the limit.
Although the Soviets have lost Stalingrad, they still vastly outnumber the Germans and their strong resistance continues. They target German supply lines, especially those carrying oil, and make a number of attempts to retake Stalingrad. What if Operation Barbarossa had never happened? Without the immediate benefit of the oilfields, combined with the sheer size and logistical complexity of Russia, defending the Caucasus stretches the Wehrmacht beyond its limits.
Although delayed, the outcome of the war remains the same as in our timeline, with Germany eventually retreating from Russia and losing the war.
Although the first scenario is perhaps the most likely, with any what-if question, the various answers depend on the assumptions that you make. So, with Stalingrad behind them and the Sixth Army still intact, the Germans confidently advance towards their main goal, the oilfields in the Caucasus. Read more about: Battles What was the worst military decision in history? With plenty of manpower still at their disposal, the German army continues pushing east.
As per the first scenario though, the supply line situation remains the Achilles heel for the German army. Without also having the time and money to invest in upgrading the transportation network in Russia, the small amount of resources the Germans can extract from the Caucasus proves to be of little help in keeping their war machine fed.
However, with the Soviets now being starved of oil and with no great propaganda victory at Stalingrad, morale is at an all-time low in Russia. In the immediate term the Soviets are unable to shift the Germans from their country, but at the same time, the Germans are unable to inflict the killer blow to the Soviets due to logistics and supply. Instead, a stalemate ensues. With Moscow still in Soviet hands, Stalin continues to orchestrate attacks on the German forces.
The Museum's commemoration ceremony, including remarks by the German ambassador and a Holocaust survivor, is happening now. February 2, After months of fierce fighting and heavy casualties, German forces numbering now only about 91, surviving soldiers surrender at Stalingrad on the Volga.
Help us teach about the consequences of unchecked hate and antisemitism. Give today. Germany's defeat at Stalingrad was not only a catastrophic German loss but put Germany on the defensive for the rest of the war. The German army was hobbled by Hitler's micromanaging and tactics, intransigence, and poor German battlefield leadership. The Soviet's benefitted from superior Soviet leadership, numbers, and tactics. In June , Germany invaded the Soviet Union.
It was a surprise attack that violated the Molotov-Ribbentrop treaty signed in between Germany and the Soviet Union. The agreement was a non-aggression pact between Germany and the Soviet Union intended to ensure that neither country attacked the other.
As a result of their tactical surprise, the German army achieved a series of spectacular victories. Hundreds of thousands of Soviet troops were killed and up to a million and a half taken prisoner. A quarter of a million men surrendered during the German capture of Kyiv, alone. He initially refused to believe the reports of a German invasion.
The supreme leader of the Soviets possibly suffered a nervous breakdown in the early stages of the invasion. However, after some time, he helped direct the Soviet counter-attack. However, winter arrived early that year, and this slowed down the German advance. The harsh weather slowed the German advance.
German soldiers began to suffer in incredibly harsh conditions. Like Napoleon's army in the 19th Century, the Russian weather took its toll on the German forces. The Soviets used the weather to their advantage. The Soviets stationed considerable forces in the east to defend Siberia from a Japanese invasion. Staling withdrew these troops and placed them under the command of General George Zhukov.
They were then organized into a strike force aimed at repelling the German advance on Moscow. However, despite the setback, the Germans had a secure hold over much of the western Soviet Union and had laid siege to Leningrad.
The German general staff eventually stabilized the German front line and fended off further Soviet attacks during early Hitler and his generals planned a Spring offensive that they hoped would lead to Stalin suing for peace or unconditional Soviet surrender. Instead of thrusting forward towards the Soviet capital again, the Germans decided to launch an attack on the south.
The German army led by the sixth army was to advance into the southern Russian Steppe. Hitler and his army had only limited access to oil, and he believed that if his army could occupy the oil fields, then his army could advance into the Middle East. In the late summer of , the German army engaged in a rapid advance through southern Russia.
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