[Sailor]

Hello Gents:

By Oct 1941 Germany had reached the height of military success. America was not in the war and Russia was now proving to be a very difficult foe. Was there a peace initiative with the West to try and achieve what was proving very difficult to do by force of arms…to turn the war back into a one front war…sort of a reversal of WW1?

Thank you for your comments,

Regards,

Sailor

 

[jjk308]

I'm sure there were some dipomatic efforts made but they weren't substantive. The last major diplomatic effort was an exchange of messages between Roosevelt and Hitler after the fall of France in 1940, triggered by Roosevelt's attempt in June 1940 to get Italy out of the war and perhaps broker a European settlement. To try and keep the USA uninvolved Hitler promised no moves against the British Empire and claimed his aim was peace with Britain.
After Britain refused to make a peace with Germany that would leave Hitler in control of Europe, Germany began making moves to use Vichy French bases against Britain and the USA began supplying Britain with substantial war materiel, Hitler seems to have decided that there was an "Anglo-Saxon Jewish Conspiracy" against him that included Roosevelt, Churchill and later Stalin. This effectively killed all diplomacy except for reasons of propaganda.
The Roosevelt administration had come to the logical conclusion, after Hitler's conquest of Europe, that he was by far the greatest danger facing the USA. After the invasion of the USSR this was reinforced by the belief that Hitler couldn't be trusted to keep ANY peace agreement.
An excellent book that tries to examine Hitler's thinking is "The Wages of Destruction: The Making and Breaking of the Nazi Economy", by Adam Tooze. Most of it is on the German wartime mobilization, its failure to harness the industries of the european territory it conquered and its relative poverty compared to the USA and Britain. But it also includes the mindset of Hitler that led to his poorly founded strategic decisions, diplomatic decisions and the policy changes that added to the burdens on Germany's economy.

 

[chud]

One of the theories is Hitler stopped his advance at Dunkirk was he really hoped England would sue for peace. I also wonder if the connection of the royal blood had him thinking of aryan purity. After all in WW1 the King George v removed the German titles of relatives who were British subjects and changed the royal house from Saxe-Coburg-Gotha to WINDSOR.

 

[Clyde]

No known overtures from Germany. Hitler did (as has been stated) rather hope the British would agree to some sort of a deal - but he seems to have expected them to ask. With Churchill as PM, any such expectation is a measure of Hitler's insanity.

 

[chud]

No known overtures from Germany. Hitler is (as has been stated) rather hoped the British would agree to some sort of a deal - but he seems to have expected them to ask. With Churchill as PM, any such expectation is a measure of Hitler's insanity.

I agree. If Neville Chamberlain were still PM he would have given Hitler the Royal Jewels.

 

[Sailor]

You may be right, after all Hitler (according to some sources) sent Rudolph Hess over in that fantastic peace overture that is still shrouded in mystery (files yet to be released). Hitler of course claimed Hess was acting on his own, but you gotta believe that if Clement Atlee had parachuted into Berlin in October 1941 with a reciprocative peace plan, Hess would have been declared a national hero and we might all be eating sauerkraut by now…

 

[Clyde]

Hey - we have sauerkraut every now and then at our house, right here in Texas. And for sure when we go to New Braunfels, Fredericksburg, or one of the small country cafes in the area around Round Top, Schulenberg or other such German-settled towns.

If you look into his actual history, Chamberlain would not, I think, have been inclined to make a premature peace once hostilities erupted. While he deserves some of the stuff that gets thrown at him - a lot of it is unjust.

 

[chud]

I'm sure there were some dipomatic efforts made but they weren't substantive. The last major diplomatic effort was an exchange of messages between Roosevelt and Hitler after the fall of France in 1940, triggered by Roosevelt's attempt in June 1940 to get Italy out of the war and perhaps broker a European settlement. To try and keep the USA uninvolved Hitler promised no moves against the British Empire and claimed his aim was peace with Britain.
After Britain refused to make a peace with Germany that would leave Hitler in control of Europe, Germany began making moves to use Vichy French bases against Britain and the USA began supplying Britain with substantial war materiel, Hitler seems to have decided that there was an "Anglo-Saxon Jewish Conspiracy" against him that included Roosevelt, Churchill and later Stalin. This effectively killed all diplomacy except for reasons of propaganda.
The Roosevelt administration had come to the logical conclusion, after Hitler's conquest of Europe, that he was by far the greatest danger facing the USA. After the invasion of the USSR this was reinforced by the belief that Hitler couldn't be trusted to keep ANY peace agreement.
An excellent book that tries to examine Hitler's thinking is "The Wages of Destruction: The Making and Breaking of the Nazi Economy", by Adam Tooze. Most of it is on the German wartime mobilization, its failure to harness the industries of the european territory it conquered and its relative poverty compared to the USA and Britain. But it also includes the mindset of Hitler that led to his poorly founded strategic decisions, diplomatic decisions and the policy changes that added to the burdens on Germany's economy.

ww2 magazine Ja?

 

[dive1tom]

To bad Japan didn't Attack Russian from the east finished them off before jumping on America.If they would have done that with Russia being out of the way America would have to go for peace so it could build up its war machine.

 

[Clyde]

OK - the Japanese had had a recent dispute with the Russians that didn't turn out nearly as well as the Russo-Japanese war of around three decades previous (see Nomonhon Incident). They didn't want any more of the Red Army. Also, nothing to attract them north. They were focused on the Southern Resource Area, with tin, rubber, oil and such in Indo-China, Dutch East indies, and Burma (which also had the attraction of cutting off western aid to China by cutting the Burma Road).

Whatever the Germans might have seen as desirable in a Japanese attack on the Soviets in1941, the Japanese saw none and had no treaty obligatin to, either (any more than the Germans had an obligation to declare war on the USA after Pearl Harbor). Now - as things ultimately sorted out, the Japanese just might have been wise to coordinate with teh NAzis to knock the Soviets out of the war before they took on the USA and Britain, but somehow I don't think anybody saw 1945 just then, I really don't. And they'd have needed to for that scenario to have been adopted.

 

[royke]

OK - the Japanese had had a recent dispute with the Russians that didn't turn out nearly as well as the Russo-Japanese war of around three decades previous (see Nomonhon Incident). They didn't want any more of the Red Army. Also, nothing to attract them north. They were focused on the Southern Resource Area, with tin, rubber, oil and such in Indo-China, Dutch East indies, and Burma (which also had the attraction of cutting off western aid to China by cutting the Burma Road).

Whatever the Germans might have seen as desirable in a Japanese attack on the Soviets in1941, the Japanese saw none and had no treaty obligatin to, either (any more than the Germans had an obligation to declare war on the USA after Pearl Harbor). Now - as things ultimately sorted out, the Japanese just might have been wise to coordinate with teh NAzis to knock the Soviets out of the war before they took on the USA and Britain, but somehow I don't think anybody saw 1945 just then, I really don't. And they'd have needed to for that scenario to have been adopted.

If the Axis leaders had been gifted with foresight they might have done things differently,
although traits such as reason or wisdom seem to have been in extremely short supply in
Germany, Japan, or Italy at that time.....

 

[Clyde]

Got that right, Royke