History Question

[McBif]

Men,

 

Just today I was reading for probably the hundredth time about how nuts old Hitler was to declare war on the States after Pearl Harbor when he had no treaty obligation with Japan to do so.

 

For the hundredth time I shouted, "Surely old Hitler wasn't so dumb to think Roosevelt and Marshall wouldn't have simply decided to contain Japan for a year or two while launching all they had against Germany?!?"

 

Am I wrong? What do you history readers think?

[Denarius]

Why do you say that Germany had no treaty obligation to aid Japan? They had signed the Tripartite Pact. Wasn't that sufficient?

 

[Julian2]

When the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor Hitler thought he was on a roll. The Wermacht was at the gates of Moscow, Rommel was winning in North Africa and all of mainland Europe lay at his feet.

Possibly he had some vision of the Japanese attacking Russia from the East if it didn't surrender after Moscow fell.

But it didn't fall, the weather got bad, the supply lines stopped working and after that it was all down hill.

[Flashermac]

I read a fascinating psychological study of nutty Adolf. The authors began by saying how everyone agreed Hitler was a bit scrambled upstairs, but then historians tried to analyse his actions as if a normal person had done them. They were the first to study them from the perspective of someone who was ABNORMAL.

 

Hitler periodically would have times when he would sort of come unglued, moaning about how he was "unworthy" to lead Germany and how he wasn't "pure". The authors suggested that Hitler didn't really feel he deserved to win. Declaring war on the US was one sure way to guarantee that.

 

 

 

[chuckwoww]

I'd say Hitler basically underestimated the American response. But McBif is correct about Germany's obligation to Japan. Japan wasn't attacked, as required by the Tripartite Pact, so Germany didn't have to declare war against the US. Unless the blockade of Japan is considered an act of war.

[elef]

It was a complicated play - some quotes from wikipedia WW II

 

Hitler kept his plan to invade the USSR secret from the Japanese. The USSR, fearing a two-front war, decided to make peace with Japan. On April 13, 1941, the USSR and Japan signed the Soviet-Japanese Neutrality Pact, thus allowing the Japanese to concentrate their attention to the upcoming war in Asia-Pacific.

 

In the summer of 1941, the United States, the United Kingdom, and the Netherlands began an oil embargo against Japan, threatening its ability to fight a major war at sea or in the air. However, Japanese forces continued to advance into China. Japan planned an attack on Pearl Harbor to cripple the U.S. Pacific Fleet, then seize oil fields in the Dutch East Indies.

 

On December 7, Japan launched almost simultaneous surprise attacks against Pearl Harbor, Thailand and on the British territories of Malaya and Hong Kong.

 

Germany declared war on the United States on December 11, even though it was not obliged to do so under the Tripartite Pact. Hitler hoped that Japan would support Germany by attacking the Soviet Union. Japan did not do so because it had signed a non-aggression treaty, preferring instead to focus on expanding its empire in China, Southeast Asia, and the Pacific. Rather than opening a second front on the USSR, the effect of Germany's declaration of war was to remove any significant opposition within the United States to joining the fight in the European Theater.

 

 

On August 8, two days after the atomic bomb was dropped on Hiroshima, the Soviet Union, having renounced its nonaggression pact with Japan in April, attacked the Japanese in Manchuria, fulfilling its Yalta pledge to attack the Japanese within three months after the end of the war in Europe. The attack was made by three Soviet army groups. In less than two weeks, the Japanese army in Manchuria, consisting of over a million men, had been destroyed by the Soviets. The Red Army moved into North Korea on August 18. Korea was subsequently divided at the 38th parallel into Soviet and U.S. zones.

 

 

and from Yalta conference

 

Roosevelt was clearly concerned about the USSR entering the Pacific War on the side of Allies. One precondition for the USSR's declaration of war against Japan was the agreement, between USA and USSR, recognising Mongolian independence from China. This agreement was made with no diplomatic negotiations with China. Soon after Yalta Conference finished, the USSR formally declared war against Japan and Soviet troops seized northern parts of Japanese archipelago. Later, this caused a dispute between Russia and Japan, since Russia did not sign the San Francisco Peace Treaty with Japan and no separate peace treaty had been signed between Russia and Japan until now.

 

[Flashermac]

I remember being told by my high school history teacher (a WWII vet) that Americans were furious with the Nipponese gents after the Pearl attack and were eager to fight them. But FDR wanted to get Hitler - and long had. If Hitler hadn't declared war on the US, FDR would have been faced with a problem.

 

FDR really was an SOB. He deliberately misled the US garrison in the Philippines into believing help was on the way to keep them fighting, when he had already decided to abandon them. A fleet to reinforce the Wake Island garrison - which had repelled an attack and given the Japanese their first defeat in the Pacific -- was also recalled and Wake allowed to be overrun. All efforts were to be aimed at Europe, with just a holding action in the Pacific. Even a Japanese submarine campaign against the US west coast didn't change that.

 

 

 

 

[McBif]

Thanks for all the input, men.

 

Regarding FDR, I've always thought there was something funny about that guy (and his battle axe wife) despite the recent bio by Conrad Black (whom I generally admire) that paints him in glowing colours.

 

For example, the business about the "unconditional surrender" for Germany which he sprung on Churchill in the middle of a press conference and which pleased Stalin and the commies and fellow travelers in the State Dept. only prolonged the war and made domestic opposition to Hitler almost impossible.

 

On the other hand, he was determined to aid England against huge isolationist feeling in the USA despite the risks to his presidency.

 

On yet another hand, he handed eastern Europe to Stalin and his successors for 45 years...

 

... and therefore communist China (60-80 million killed by Mao)...

 

... and therefore Pol Pot with the etc. etc...

 

...North Korea (there's a nice place!), Vietnam, Laos...

 

It's lucky for us (no nanaplaza.com!) that LOS never fell, though it would've had the Yanks not sacrificed the 60,000 in good old Vietnam.

 

 

[Julian2]

I think you maybe a little harsh in your judgment of FDR Macca.

Blaming him for a Russian controlled Eastern Europe and Communist China? Hmmm...

A case could be made that if The Allied invasion of Europe hadn't come about the Russians would have rolled through to Paris. They had already beaten Germany's best armies by the time D Day happened. Churchill, who definitely could not be described as a "fellow traveler" saw the danger of this.

I would say that removing the Russians from Eastern Europe in 1945 would not have been an option.

China became Communist in spite of the US, not because of it. The Nationalists were given virtually all of the war materials the American and British forces left in Mainland Asia but the troops basically didn't want to fight any more.

We forget that Communism must have seemed like an extremely attractive option to Russian workers and Chinese peasants alike. Unfortunately they allowed their leaders to become as bad or worse than the system they replaced. The Russian system was no more Communist than Hitler, it was a pure and simple oligarchy, the Government by a small elite. (Something that would never be allowed to happen today).

In FDR's decision to fight Germany first I'd say the protection of the Middle Eastern oilfields probably affected it.

 

 

[Flashermac]

I'm not so convinced of the view that Stalin could have driven on to the English Channel. Hitler threw away most of his best troops at the Battle of the Bulge, then had no one left to defend Berlin. Without the Western Front this wouldn't have happened. Also, don't discount the US material aid to the Soviets, funneled in through Murmansk.

 

My father met the Russians on the Elbe. He said they were very under-equipped, even using stolen baby prams to carry artillery ammunition.

 

Take away the American saturation bombing, and Hitler would have been in much better shape to hold off Stalin.

 

Still, I agree that there was no way to keep Stalin from dominating Eastern Europe. As to China, that was Chiang Kai-shek's own eff up. Mao more or less won the Chinese civil war by default. Soviet aid helped Mao, but Mao was going to win anyway.