The most important reason I think for Germany winning the war in the beginning was because Hitler had started to rearm at least three years before anyone else. This had given him a huge advantage, it meant that he could have introduced conscription far before anyone else, and as Germany is quite a large country could have a fairly large army, one of the biggest in Europe, apart from Russia. This I think is more important than any of the other reasons because if everybody had had the same amount of time to rearm then they might have all held Germany. Poland had cavalry divisions that were still mounted on horseback! If they had had time to rearm then they might have had a chance. Also this would have given the countries more time to plan out any strategies that they might have had.
The second most important reason for winning before 1942, I think is the obviously superior tactics of the Germans. Before the Babarossa campaign, Germany would go into a country using speed to make the surprise for them. The Germans would use their tanks as their primary offensive weapon on the ground. The Allies used their tanks as a defensive weapon and then they would spread them out while the Axis powers used theirs all together as a unit, like the Calvary divisions of old. They would also use their Aircraft to great effect, for the allies did not think of using planes as an offensive weapon. Also was the German tactics of Blitzkrieg, this was to surround the enemy so quickly that the enemy have no idea what’s going on. The best example of this was in France in 1941. Hitler invaded France and captured it within six weeks. This was because he caught the French 9and the British Expeditionary force) by surprise. The French thought that they would attack along the border of France and Germany. So they built a huge defensive wall, called the Maginot line, along the border between France and Germany, but the Germans had decided that to attack the Maginot line would be suicide, and so they decide not to do that, but to attack thought the Arden forest. The French thought that the forest would be far too dense for anyone to come through, but they were wrong, and the Germans came through and captured France.
Both of these reasons are good ones and worked up to the end of 1942, but after that the War began to change. It became more of a fair fight, as the Allies armies’ began to catch up in size with their Axis counterparts. Also the Allies began to realize what the German tactics were, and they found ways to counter the effectiveness of these tactics.
Hitler also made some stupid mistakes before 1943 that did not help him win the War.
The Axis’ first major mistake was to have a war on more than one front. The whole idea of blitzkrieg was so that he would not have to have a war on more than one front. This is what he accused the Kaiser of doing in the First World War, and this is what he thought lost World War I for them.
In August 1939 Ribbentrop (German Foreign Secretary) and Molotov (Russian Foreign Secretary) signed the Russian-Soviet non-aggression pact, with the secret protocol ensured a forth partition of Poland. This was to ensure that Hitler would not have to worry about Russia for a while, so that he could concentrate on other things. But on the 25th August 1939 the British and Polish Governments signed the Anglo-Polish treaty. This treaty said that if anyone attacked Poland, then Britain would declare war on that other country. And so when on September the 1st, when Germany invaded Poland he should have expected the declaration of war that came form Britain and France (Britain’s allies). This lead Germany to have a War on two fronts which she defiantly did not want. So while Germany and Russia both invaded Poland and got what they wanted, it also brought Britain and France into the war and dragged Germany into ‘the wrong war’ as one of Hitlers German Biographers said.
Hitler also had to give troops to the Italians in North Africa. This was because the Italians were losing to the British and so they appealed to Germany to help them by sending them some men and machines to help. So Hitler sent some of his men from the Russian Campaign and put them in North Africa. This meant that Germany was now fighting on three fronts, Western Europe, Eastern Europe and North Africa.
North Africa suddenly became a hot spot for the war. Before late 1942, Germany had a series of victories that had pushed the Allies right back across Northern Africa. In late 1942 the allies suddenly had their series of victories that started in El Alamein
The Axis second major mistake was to declare war on the USA when he did not need to. Japan Bombed Pearl Harbour, and so the Americans declared War on them, but the only reason that Hitler declared War on America was because the Japanese and the Germans were allies. This had never been and issue to Hitler before. He did not care with whom he was allied and so he should not have declared War on his allies enemies. Germany made a mistake, that was vital in the Allies winning the war, for not only did the Americans bring in extra troops and war machines, but also the full economic power of the greatest nation on earth into play. The Allies suddenly got pretty much every thing that they wanted; Tanks troops, oil, money, guns, ammunition, etc. Suddenly it meant that the Allies could meet Germany on equal terms, with the same sized army with the same technology level in equipment. Although the Allies did not invade France until 1944, so they let Russia soak up most of the German Forces before they decided to attack Germany through France, instead of through Italy like they had been doing.
The Allies also did some things on their own which helped them win the War, like finally realising what the German Blitzkrieg tactics were ad how to counter them.
This was the first major step on the way to winning the war, realising what the German tactics were, and then finding a way to turn them around. The Russians did this by accident, they discovered that there army was far to large to encircle all at once, so when the Germans tried other parts of the Russian army would come along and the Russians would decimate the German army. Also because Blitzkrieg relied on being so fast that your enemies are taken by surprise, it would need good roads and communications systems to work. In Russia they just did not have these things. This meant that the speed of the German army was cut down by nearly half, and so the Russians knew that they were coming and therefore could plan ahead to keep the Germans back.
By 1943, the Allies had had a chance to catch up with German War Production. This meant that they now had better weapons and tactics than they did in 1939. They now knew what the Germans were capable of and so could now plan against it. This meant that when America joined the War the Allies had a huge advantage. The most powerful country in the world had just joined the allies’ side, bringing almost an unlimited supply of men arms and technology. They also brought with them a huge moral boast, for the Allies had been thinking that the War might have been all over for them, but when the Americans came with their men and weapons the Allies suddenly thought that they had a clear shot at victory.
This is why the allies started to win the war after 1943, and also because the Germans were bled on the battle fields in Russia.
