What would of happened if Germany would of succeded in the Battle of Britain and then sucessfully invaded? Would America fought there, to use the U.K. for bomber bases?

~Chip :-)

What happened to the Royal Navy? Did it escape to Canada, Germany gets most of the RN assests, sunk (How)?

This happened before Germany declared war on US? Say... Sept. "40? Then, US says who cares about europe. No American lives for europes problems. And then, with what happens a year later in Hawaii, US has other fish (Jap) to fry...

Welcome to Nazi Europe.

There's a novel by Len Deighten called SS-GB that examines this question. An interesting read.

I wonder if the British government would have fled to Canada or another country and tried to continue the war? Plus with the whole of Europe under its control Germany could have used more assets in its invasion of Russia. There was a really interesting TV programme looking at just this subject a few weeks ago. It showed how the Germans used the existing government infrastructure to control the countries they occupied, and showed a list of the people they would have arrested, including many intellectuals and members of the arts.
Martin

The trains would have run on time, British Leyland would have built a decent car, and drinking warm beer would have been made punishable by death.

Regards Dave

Probably the VW Beetle #:-)
Martin

Martin--- I do not see a diversion of troops to invade Russia. The occupying force would have been immense. Democratic people do not do well under oppression. He would have won the battle, but lost the war. I also believe that even in 1940, the United States would have done everything possible to preclude a German success. Would we have dispatched combat ships to England? I don't know, the British Fleet was not exactly challenged by the German surface fleet. Aircraft? Once again, what did we have to give them? Men? Well, we certainly would have sent someone, but once again the United States was hardly a power projection entity. In the end, I bet there was not much we could or would have done.
What do you think?
djj

I think the pre-cursor to this thred is "What if the Germans had advanced on Dunkirk instead of being halted by Hitler"

I don't think the British production facilities would have mattered much to the German war effort. In the end, they were bled dry by the Russian hordes, and though they tried to fight the quantity war with quality, it's not enough.

Even had the British mainland been invaded, I have to believe that the government would have moved to exile to Canada, or some other CW territory, much as the governments of the other invaded nations did. The war production of these other territories would not have been available for German needs.

My opinion,
Mika H

DJJ,

I don't know. I'd argue that the Pacific War is the counter-example, being the prime example of power projection.

Mika Harviala

In the summer of '40 the US simply did not YET have the Navy or Army that could have helped a cross channel invasion of GB.

The rank and file US citizen simply did not want to get involved in another european war, either.

May be a better question would be "What would have happened if Germany didn't declare war on the US?"

Guerilla warfare certainly would have erupted in the Isles Problem is, the US probably would not have gotten involved as they did in 1940 and early 1941 with the helping hand to Britain and Russia. Russia might have gone under without the aid sent. Germany would have prevailed in Africa and had a southerly advance into Russia taking everything they really wanted (oil) as well as leaving assets free for the taking of MOscow. I have to agree, It would have been decades of war. Eventually I think the Nazi regime would have fallen. All the high ups would have turned in on themselves.

If Germany successfully invaded U.K., there would be no eastern & western Europe, just USSR & Nazi Europe.

I wonder if the British would have sued for peace if the Germans had crossed the Channel in force? There were already politicians looking into plans to hand over Malta to Germany in return for an end to hostilities. Would Churchill have been ousted? He was already under severe pressure as the war was going so badly. I think Hitler may have accepted the peace as he was already looking east to attack the USSR. If the Japanese had also attacked Russia the war may have dragged on for decades. Without the air assault by the British and US it would have freed up over a million men to join the assault.
Martin

Martin--that some interesting material. Where did you dig up the part about exchanging Malta for a peace treaty? The Japanese as I recall had their butts kicked by the Russians several time before the German invasion. It just did not improve their strategic picture to attempt a fight with the Russians. They were interested in the riches of Mongolia and the southern Pacific rim. Let me know about the Malta issue.
thanks
DJ

If Germany would have invaded Britain and won I believe the war would have been lengthend but the result woud have been the same.

I'm with Blaster on this one fellas. Assuming the Germans invade GB and the Brits capitulate, the Germans have free reign over all of Europe, the Mediterranean, the Mid East, the whole smack. The United States and Great Britain combined damn near lost the real war because of the effectiveness of the German U-boats. Remove Great Britain and you remove the "round the clock" bombing and you have the Japanese and the Nazis shaking hands somewhere around Korea by 1944, in my opinion. I don't think the Russians could possibly have held on on their own. In any case, I can imagine a scenario where the British goverment moves to Canada and eventually the Brits, Canadians and the Yanks get some pay back.

Shaun

cracking fortress europe without the staging areas in GB would have been a very tough if not impossible task for the US, the distances involved and the range of aircraft of the time would have made this all but impossible, as far as the russians, they would have been a lost cause consider this,. Between october 1, 1941, and may 31, 1945 some 2,660 ships sailed from U.S. ports with 16,529,791 tons of supplies for Russia. the price tag on this was 11.3 billion on 1940's dollars, materials included 14,795 aircraft!! and 375,883 trucks. these numbers do not include help from Great Britain and supplies reaching russia by other routes. at the teheran conference Stalin himslef admitted that the war would have been lost without american production help. with GB lost, and no protection of the shipping lanes, that is a big loss to the russians, one they admittedly could not have over come

Bender

Once again, I am very interested in hearing more about the Malta connection mentioned above. Also, one of our contributors posed the very intriguing question of "what would have happen if Germany did not declare war on the US?" That is interesting.
DJ

One thing to consider was Hitler's attitude toward the British. He was an Anglophile- he admired the British.
If the British had sued for peace- even giving up various territories to gain peace, my thought is that Hitler would have revved up the propoganda machine to convince the British that the true enemy was the Bolsheviks. German and British soldiers marching together against the Eastern Hordes.

Peter

I agree with phantom major about irrgular warfare in scotland as the terrain isnt suited for
armoured warfare in most of the country and would need lots of troops to keep the locals tied down hell we don't like our neighbours mimagine what an occupping forces reception
would be like #:-) as for britain under the jack boot parts of it was the channel islands were
under nazi rule for 5 yrs there are books on this and it wil give you a good idea of what normal life was like funny enough my old trg reg predessor (jlr regt rasc) was evacutated hours before the germans invaded jersey (in case your wondering what jlr stands for is junior leader regt) these are made up of boy soldiers who can enlist at 16 and go to special
regts were they carry out basic training which lasts for about a 1yr -2yrs depending what trade they are doing but are not allowed to serve on acticve service until 18 these years upto 18 are called queens service and don't quailiy towards time served for pensions ect ) these regts are the one reason the UK has never signed upto the UN paper on child soldiers as it would make them illegal and these regts used to make up alot of the yearly intake for the army).
but back to the real issue what wolud have happened to northern ireland would the germans have offered it to the republic as it's well known that the germans were trying to win them over with support to attack it thats one of the reasons that some of the 1st US
troops in the UK were posted to NI to stop any southern invasion how true it is I dont know
but there has been tales of uboots being moored up in Irish harbours and crews hitting
the local bars tall tale maybe i leave that to you. I really dont think that at the time the US would have attacked the UK to recapture it as the u-boot fleet would have grown even bigger in size and will have posed a real and deadly threat to any invasion fleet. they would have supplied clandstine arms to the UK resistance movement at the bequest of the goverment in exile but these might only be sub runs with canaidain made weapons to
limit the involvement and finger pointing by the germans in due course the stand off would occur but by the time this happened both would have had the nuke and the world as we know it might not exist
well thats my slant on it open to any comments on it

Sauerkraut instead orf curries

Simple Fact folks! They would have if they could have! The didn't because they couldn't! What is the point of what if? I mean what if we had the bomb in 1917? Would the world be different? It makes no cense to say what if. But if it makes your day I won't stand in your way but things usually happened or didn't happen the way they did for a reason.
Just my 2 cents
Jeff Larkin aka beachbm2

If the Germans would have stuck with their plan of hitting the RAF airfields instead of turning towards London, I believe a good chunk of Europe would be speaking German right now. The Germans lost the Battle of Britain because Goerring made a stupid mistake--he gave the RAF enough time to recooperate when he started bombing London.

I also wonder what would have happened if the Luftwaffe had a good 4 engine bomber! They could have hit Moscow at a whim!

It's my understanding the the mistake was not Goering's but rather Hitler's. The story goes that there was an agreement that the capitals would not be bombed. On one raid a German bomber enrout to its target got lost and mistaking the lights of London for the target, dropped its bombs on the city. Churchill ordered a retaliatory raid on Berlin which threw Hitler into a fit. He then ordered Goering to ignore the airfields and concentrate on the cities.

I don't know how much truth there is to this story, but it makes a certain amount of sense to me.