A Hitler Hypothetical
On December 11, 1941 Adolf Hitler declared war on the United States. Almost everyone who has analyzed this decision has been puzzled. Why go out of your way to antagonize the United States when it’s consumed with fury against Japan?
The leading reply: At this point, Hitler saw that war was inevitable, so he might as well take the moral high ground for propaganda reasons.
I’m unconvinced. In the absence of Hitler’s war declaration, there must have been at least a 5% chance that the U.S. would have delayed war with Germany for at least another year. And even if the U.S. seized the initiative and declared war, there must be at least a 10% chance that the U.S. would have focused more on Japan in this scenario. Even if war was “inevitable,” timing and intensity matter.
In any case, I maintain that Hitler had a simple way to dramatically reduce the risk of war with the U.S. after Pearl Harbor. Namely: Instead of declaring war on the United States, he should have declared war on Japan. Something along the lines of, “While we have had grave differences with the Americans in the past, I was horrified to see fellow Aryans attacked by Asian Untermenschen. We stand shoulder to shoulder with the Americans – and I offer my sincere condolences to President Roosevelt.”
“War with Japan” would be a token military commitment for Germany. They already lost all their Asian colonies after World War I. Just sink a stray Japanese vessel or two in the Atlantic and wage a second Sitzkrieg, a “Phony War.” It is hard to see Japan doing much to retaliate. Germany and Japan almost totally failed to coordinate their war effort. And despite their common border in the East, Japan wasn’t in much of a position to Soviet resistance.
I say this strategy would have at least a 25% chance of keeping U.S. troops out of the European theater until 1944.
Am I wrong?
The post appeared first on Econlib.
I got out my copy of The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich. Before Pearl Harbour (in April), Hitler was urging Japan to attack Britain in the east. If America got caught in the crossfire, c’est la vie. In this process, Hitler causally made a secret pledge to Japan that if Japan got into a conflict with the US, Germany would “take the necessary steps.”
One of the problems with dictatorships is that you don’t have people to call you on your bullshit. Hitler did not think much of the US’ military power and thought it a weak and divided society (and he overestimated Japanese power).
Now Hitler was mercurial, and did not want the US in the war until he had finished with the USSR. In the April - November period, it was actually others pressing Hitler for action against the US; Admiral Raeder in particular wanted to be able to sink US ships and staunch the flow of Lend-Lease supplies to the UK.
this train of thought only works if your ww2 understanding comes from a public school history book