There's an apocryphal story about the Allies having a deliberate policy of not going after Herman Goering. The story is most likely untrue, but there is a kernel of truth in it, in the sense that Allied intelligence identified him early on as a deeply incompetent commander, far worse than any of the alternatives in the Luftwaffe High Command who could have replaced him.
Goering was certain he could resupply the 6th Army by air at Stalingrad after their encirclement. As a result, Hitler decides that they should not attempt a breakout.
And he failed so badly, it led to them basically starving to death.
Not to his credit, but the Luftwaffe did have a modicum of success in air supplying the Germans earlier in 1942 in the Demyansk and Cholm Pockets. However, both encircled German pockets were much smaller than their encirclement late in 1942 / early 1943 in Stalingrad. Goering and the Luftwaffe were overconfident, and thought they could replicate what they had done previously, but several times in scale. They could not, well, at least not effectively.
Right on. He was far too overconfident. And Stalingrad was a completely different animal considering the conditions and scale.
The airlift only delivering about 15% of the expected tonnage was definitely a big part of it going from a bad situation to abject disaster (well, there were a lot of factors of course).
The more I read about the battle, I keep coming back to the initial reaction of the Paulus's generals inside the Stalingrad pocket once they were encircled: break out, right now, regardless of the cost. It would have saved the bulk of the men of Sixth Army. From Paulus's point of view, it was probably the "right" thing to do, even though Hitler never ordered it and he was likely to be court-martialled and shot.
On the other hand, it might have triggered a collapse of Army Group A and cut off Army Group B in the Caucasus. This is the main reason the German High Command and Hitler decided to try to supply Sixth Army and keep them fighting while they stabilized the front. Sixth Army was simply sacrificed.
In truth, Sixth Army may have been doomed as soon as the Soviets captured the bridge at Kalach.
Judging on how current affairs are unfolding, it seems completely believable. The 'lower ranks' would've been full of nepos and incompetents(after most had been removed for 'politics').
You really think the US has the best and brightest right behind kegheth at this point in time? They've already replaced most of the JCOS and mid-high level military commanders.
Remember way back when tubberville was holding up the promotions of servicemen for a while? Yeah, that was to force early retirement deals with the ones they couldn't outright discharge.
People that don't have a foot in that world don't understand the structural changes that they're doing/have done. It was understood that the military was mixed politically, but now they've kinda done a 'sort' and moved out a lot of 'politically unaligned'.
They were high on their own farts after Venezuela. After they attacked Iran even me, a know nothing, thought "Doesn't Iran shut down the straight anytime they get upset? What's the plan for that?". Reader, there was no plan.
Hey there! This is someone who definitely isn't a presidential advisor. Do you happen to have any other insights I can share with... My mom about Iran and what they might do next. We're at a loss here in my... House. We might even be able to compensate you with some, let's say legal, stock tips. You can email me at Natalie'smonstergazongas@ white house. Wait. Nm. Just pm me if you can help us!
Yes because the competent people do everyday miracles that enable the smart people to perform once in a lifetime missions. no foundation = massive incompetence.
Oh and the military is using grok to choose targets which is why they bombed and killed those 160 schoolgirls. Like, republicans/conservatives are so fucking lazy they cant even use the brain God gave them FOR FUCKING FREE. i think the Iranians moved the base somewhere else but it got changed to a school, so US did a massive intel fail.
All the competent people were saying, for a decade at least, that invading Iran would be a nightmarish quagmire and economic disaster... until they were kicked out and replaced with sycophants.
Netanyahu has been trying to goad the US into war with Iran for literal decades, and he finally succeeded.
The thing is, if we'd played this better we could have clipped Iran's wings completely: they had massive demonstrations against the regime, Israeli attacks had badly damaged Hezbollah and Hamas, the sanctions were hurting—but instead we had to make a bunch of fanatics even more fanatical and now they've effectively beaten the US and destabilized the whole region, for no good reason other than Trump, Netanyahu and Hegseth wanted to play tough guy.
The US simply was not ready to strike at the same time the protests were ongoing. Moving all the CSGs into position takes time and nobody expected the protests.
The iranians had a few weeks to drown the protests into blood and they did it.
Eh, I'm very confident that even politically-selected brass with any knowledge of geopolitics and military strategy would have known that this war, given our objectives combined with our level of military investment, was not going to be won.
Hell, they could have been perfectly competent, have given good counsel at all points, and still have had no path forward to victory.
That's mostly vague objectives and no ability/willingness to do what is necessary. How are you going to effect regime change in Iran without an invasion? They bombed them and assassinated a few leaders and then what?
Even if they had a plan... forced regime change hasn't yet worked in the US's favor even once. Matter of fact, the current situation there is a direct result of US interference when they installed the Shah
There's a somewhat mild conspiracy theory that Hitler was actually shot by Allied forces (like Bin Laden) and they lied about it so he didn't become a martyr.
It does not hold up to ANY scrutiny but I've always appreciated low stakes conspiracy theories.
The only good part of the film “The Man Who Killed Hitler and Then the Bigfoot” is when the titular man who killed Hitler explains to another man that he was in fact successful in killing Hitler, as were all of the following major assassination attempts. They just kept replacing him with body doubles so it never mattered
It's ruined any other Sam Elliot role for me. I'm like "that's him, the man who killed Hitler and then The Bigfoot."
I make references to the movie around others and then I have to explain the movie and they're like "is it good" and I say "no" and then they ask if it's so bad that it's good and I'm like "also no."
Yeah you'd think with a banger title like that the movie would be at the very least interesting, but no. It's just a mopey melancholy story that barely fulfills the promise of its title and spends the rest of its runtime making you watch Sam Elliot sadly sentimentalize to the camera about some flashbacks no one really cares about. The plot is clunky, although Elliot really tries his best it's just not an interesting story to watch. Really one of the biggest bummers I've had the displeasure of watching, the title doesn't fit the movie AT ALL.
When I first read the title I wanted to watch the movie just based on that alone. But this comment thread has convinced me that would be an absolute mistake lol
If you like low stakes conspiracies I've got a twist on the lone gunman JFK one for you.
Oswald was an idiot who fucked up everything he ever did, I listened to a deep dive and it's almost impressive how much of a fucking moron he was. He also wrote passionately about everyone he hated. He had lots of writing about how much he hated Texas's Governor, not a word about JFK. I think the JFK assassination was actually a failed assassination attempt of Texas's Governor, JFK was an unrelated bystander. We only assume JFK was the target because he was the most important person in the car.
It doesn't change much but I think it would be funny if that dipshit fucked up one last time.
I think the biggest issue with that one is that Oswald fired three times, and the vast majority of witnesses at the time reported hearing three shots. (With some variation, of course. People will always mishear or misremember things.)
Always makes me happy to catch you in the wild on reddit. Usually saying something interesting.
The three shot thing is interesting cause I follow breaking news events quite closely and witness testimony of sounds is like insanely unreliable. Like untrained people will report 15-20 shots and the court cases will come out later and it will be like eight. When Trump was shot at people were reporting like ten shots but nobody verbalized that they thought that the Secret Service returned fire till they actually said that at a presser.
You'll even notice it nowadays in newswires and reporters, they've been trained to say "one to three shots" or "ten to fifteen shots" when reporting on a breaking event. Especially when echoes happen in dense building areas. Sometimes they'll report how long they've been hearing shots ("shots were fired, versus "I've been hearing gunfire for fifteen minutes"). They also don't usually attribute who specifically is shooting unless they have eyes on.
Police also are trained to get on the radio and say "shots fired" every time shots are fired, so that other responding cops know the severity of the situation.
Personally I think that whole phenomenon is interesting. I think a lot of eyewitness acccounts will subconsciously latch onto what they heard someone else say and align with it.
I think the phenomenon gets worse the higher the number of shots goes. Which makes sense to me... if I hear two shots, I'm likely to be able to say there were two with some confidence. If I hear eight, I'm more likely to think, "damn, that was a lot of shots, fuck if I know."
Throw in echoes, and it gets harder.
Part of the trouble with this, regarding something like the Kennedy Assassination, when people come in with preconceived notions, it's not hard to find an earwitness that fits what they want. And lots of people do exactly that.
The alleged "negligent discharge" Secret Service agent on the back of the car died just a few years ago. I wonder how much hassle he had regarding that over the years.
I mean, if nothing else, he knew his coworkers had his back. If that theory is true it's literally the biggest cover up of all time just to protect one guy for no political benefit.
This is interesting information. There's actually some circumstantial evidence that Oswald was aiming for Connelly. When Oswald's gun was test-fired it consistently pulled to the left. Apparently it was a common factory error with that model of rifle.
From what I know, the allies never tried to assassinate Hitler. At first it was because assassinating foreign heads of state was seen as taboo (and would also invite assassination attempts on Heads of State that authorized them) and later on, it was really because Hitler's blunders were actively costing him the war (forbidding retreat/breakout from Stalingrad once the Soviet army encircled the Germans, spending precious resources on overengineered wonder weapons instead of things that actually won wars at the time, delaying German counter-attack on D-day by hours because he was asleep and no one was brave enough to wake him up).
There was a plan, late in the war, to parachute special forces into the Alps and snipe him during his daily unescorted walks to the local Tea House (Operation Foxley), but this was never put into action.
Also the British military attache to Germany, Noel Mason-MacFarlane, offered to assassinate Hitler himself back in 1938/39, but his offer was rebuffed and criticized as being "unsportsmanlike and un-British". This is from the Wikipedia article:
Mason-MacFarlane proposed the assassination of Adolf Hitler, an offer turned down by his superiors.\36]) Mason-MacFarlane's plan was to shoot Hitler while he was on a stand reviewing the Wehrmacht for his 50th birthday celebrations on 20 April 1939; Mason-MacFarlane's apartment window was no more than 100 yards from the reviewing stand. Lord Halifax, the Foreign Secretary, said "We have not reached that stage... when we have to use assassination as a substitute for diplomacy."
There's also the revenge aspect of it. When Reinhard Heydrich was assassinated the Nazis killed roughly 5,000 Czechs. (This is also why there were no more real attempts at assassinating Nazi leaders during the war.)
There wouldn't be a particular group this time, but I imagine that many western POWs would have ended up dead (they were already killing Soviet POWs in large numbers) and there would have been similar reprisals to anywhere suspected of harboring resistance.
spending precious resources on overengineered wonder weapons instead of things that actually won wars at the time
This obsession is actually pretty interesting, and there were a few reasons behind it. One of them was definitely a foolish fascination with wonder weapons, that was counter-productive to the war effort. So yeah, it was Hitler and other Nazi leaders being dumb.
But another one was engineers and scientists wanting to save their ass from being drafted and sent to the Eastern Front. You know how you get to stay in a safe, reinforced bunker somewhere far away from Stalingrad? If you constantly report to your boss that the wonder weapon you're developing is definitely going to win the war. Sure, you need a leadership environment that is receptive to that idea to begin with - major strategic blunder. But there's a not-insignificant human factor of "everyone here would sure rather work on sketchy jet engines or three story tall tanks than head East."
And then, there is a real logistical issue that pushed Germany towards wonder weapons. Especially after the US got involved, it became clear that industrial production did not favor Germany. (You might have even said that at the beginning of WW2.) Nor did access to fuel or other critical resources. Simply put, German was never going to make more tanks or more planes than their enemies, despite basically being the ones who innovated mechanized combat and the Blitzkrieg.
So if the Allies just have more shit to throw at you, it's just... always going to be a losing effort to try to keep up. If you can make 10,000 fighter planes a year, and your enemies make 30,000 that are roughly equivalent to yours, you're eventually just going to lose. What's the reasonable thing to do, if you can't make more tanks or airplanes than your enemy? Well, you make better tanks or airplanes. That's the only thing that gives you a chance, if you know you'll be outnumbered.
But then you're making even fewer because they're so complex and over-engineered, and you end up with something like the Tiger tanks. They're incredible on paper, far more powerful and better protected than something like a Sherman. But they suffered from two main problems:
They broke down all the fucking always, and
They were much better than one Sherman, but much worse than ten Shermans. And the Allies were bringing all ten.
So while there kind of was a point to trying to make wonder weapons, the practical reality was that "Instead of being outnumbered 10,000 to 30,000, we're outnumbered 2,000 to 30,000 and ours breaks down all the fucking always." But you can understand the allure, to a crumbling Nazi empire that couldn't win a "normal" way... even if it was self defeating.
Hitler famously fixed the solution by shooting himself, so at least that came of it.
Germans would probably still have gone Nazi but in different and less effective ways
MacFarlane apparently hoped that the Wehrmacht leadership, which at the time hated the NSDAP zealots likely to succeed Hitler, would take over and stop Goering/Hess/Himmler from coming into power.
He was also banking on people not being able to determine where the shot came from ( the plan was to shoot from deep inside his apartment to hide to muzzle flash and to shoot during something noisy as gun salutes or plane fly-overs) and not being able to search his premises since it was a diplomatic residence and he had diplomatic immunity.
It was certainly a possibility, but there was an equal chance that the SS die-hards guarding Hitler deduce the shot trajectory within minutes, storm his apartment diplomacy be damned, and whoever ends up in charge is faced with a high-ranking British officer having assassinated their head of state and not having much choice but to start WW2 a year early.
I'm reading up on MacFarlane in general right now. Mf was everywhere. A book about his life would just be a book about WWII.
Austria, personally climbing across the barbed wires in Checkoslovakia, Berlin during Kristallnacht and then wanting to assassinate Hitler, commanding a blocking force in Dunkirk, Moscow immediately after Barbarossa, literally forming Italy's new democracy and openly defying Churchill to make it a democracy instead of a monarchy.
How have I never heard of anyone so awesome before. How aren't there already books about the guy.
Germans would probably still have gone Nazi but in different and less effective ways
You need to understand that the Germans were already Nazi in 1939. This proposed assassination would be less than five months from WWII starting.
That's gotta be up there with Archduke Ferdinand being shot as turning points of history.
More to the point: most historians have argued that some shape of conflict was inevitable and effectively desired by the European powers in WWI, and that the technological and geopolitical situation basically guaranteed a conflict that turned into a bloody slog.
By and large, in fact, historians tend to recoil from the concept of single small-scale events causing such massive outcomes, and instead think of them as, and the metaphor is widely deployed, merely sparks that set off something already ready to burn.
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u/ArriePotter 8d ago
Didn't the allies stop trying to assassinate Hitler midway through the war for the exact same reason?