If Germany won the Battle of Britain, would they have won the war?

Question

If Germany won the Battle of Britain (1940 - 1941), instead of abandonning an invasion of the UK in favour of Operation Barbarossa, would the Axis powers have won the Second World War?

Answer 1

Probably not. Their fleet was no match for the British Navy and they had no landing craft to speak of. They were not prepared for an invasion of England in 1940. It would have taken at least 3 years to get an amphibious assault ready by which time England was pretty nigh impregnable.

The Germans did not attempt to eliminate the RAF as others below have said. They tried to bomb ports, airstrips, and then towns. Their attacks were poorly planned and executed and really given that Goering was the Air Field Marshall this comes as no surprise. If you want further evidence look at his attempt to supply Stalingrad via non-existent planes and airfields in 1942/3. Also look at his feeble efforts at Dunkirk which really could have changed the result of the war if his luftwaffe had succeded in pushing the allies into the sea.

If someone such as Heinz Guderian or Rommel was in charge of the Luftwaffe I suspect we may have seen a rather different result.

Given their level of planning they were never going to win the battle of britain.

Answer 2

More than probably. Britain's winning the Battle of Britain was key to the postponing of 'Operation Sea lion'. The Soviet Union is another matter. Germany had a better equipped army and was aided by Finland, Roumania, Italy, Slovakia, Hungary, and Spain. The Netherlands, Norway, Croatia, Portugal France, Sweden and Bulgaria all gave moral support to the war on Russia. With Britain conquered, Germany could have won but it would have been a long drawn-out slog. (Read up on the Artic convoys.)( I think that my pro- German - at the time - list is incomplete.)

Answer 3

Mmmmm intresting question and some even more intresting answers.

I truly think that if Germany had won the Battle of Britain then Hitler would have made attepmts to land his troops in Britain, but as another person has answered the British Navy was at a high point during WW2 and I believe it would have proved very difficult for the Germans to Invade even then (the will of a British person is stonger than any other i have ever seen and this has been proved many a time) I'm with ehc11, i am truly greatful the boys of the RAF and always will be, they did our country proud!!

Furthermore we did have the yanks helping us out and even though they were 'over paid, over sexed & over here', you must give them their due for there part in it all.

Answer 4

The German army's lightning strike against the BEF and French troops was a remarkable victory and new tactics and planning. The Germans however failed to capitalise on the disaster at Dunkirk. If the Germans had prevented the evacuation, they could have forced Britain to surrender.

After the fall of France, Germany decided to put in place Operation Sealion, the invasion of Britain. This could have been a success if they could dominate the skies of Britain. The RAF, although small, was a highly professional force with an ace up their sleeve, Radar. This invention could detect enemy planes and direct its small fighter defence in the right direction. The German attack was poorly planned and was not given the proper resources to destroy RAF airfields and Radar stations.

During the Battle of Britain, German attacks nearly destroyed the RAF, but halted and gave the RAF some breathing space from which it recovered.

If I were a German general, I would have planned a U Boat blockade, concentrate air attacks on enemy airfields and Royal Navy, build up sufficient invasion troops (Panzer Grenadiers and Paratroops) and equipment and increased its Navy (Invasion Barges, Destroyers etc).

If the Germans could have gained a toe hold, capitulation would have been swift. The Germans could have easily won WWII

Answer 5

Yes... provided he could have resisted attacking the Soviet Union. Unfortunately Hitler's original plan was to somehow woo the British into joining him in destroying the communists who he pereceived as the greatest threat. So he was always going to attack the Russians and get his *** wooped by them anyway.

If the nazis had one the Battle of Britain they would most certainly have successfully invaded Britain. The whole point was to destroy the RAF. With complete air superiority and their U-boat fleet they would have annihilated any Royal Navy attempt to obstruct their invasion fleet. As poorly equipped as the invasion barges were it wouldn't have mattered.

Fortunately the British managed to persuade Hitler to stop attacking the British airfields and instead bomb the cities which enabled the RAF to survive long enough to just hold them off. It was a VERY close call.

We know for a fact that the Americans did NOT want to get involved and so they would not have saved Britain. This is why the British refused to warn the Americans of the imminent attack on Pearl Harbour. They knew ALL the details of the attack well in advance but desperately needed the US to come into the war so they kept quiet.

Answer 6

I think it almost certain. Although Empire and Commonwealth nations had entered the war - countries like Australia and New Zealand, Canada and South Africa - and Churchill expected them to carry on the fight with the assiatance of the Royal Navy, what would have been the point? The Germans would have had total control of Europe, a non-agression pact with the Soviet Union which was content to go along with them, and no interference from the United States. Having consolidated that power base, with the controlling position in the North Sea which the British Isles would have given them, Hitler would have been free to continue his plan which was for a constant state of war in the East. That was for three purposes; territorial acquisition and expansion for the Aryan race, the extermination of the Slavs and other inferior races and a furnace of war which would harden his young men before they returned to a healthy outdoor life in the farmlands they had seized from the Russians to raise a new generation of clean-limbed psycopaths.
The United States could not have mounted any kind of assault on Europe. They could not have mounted an air-bombing campaign across the Atlantic, they could not have ferried sufficient men and materielle across the Atlantic by ship for an assault. The only sensible course would be for them to agree to co-operate by maintaining their neutrality and, more than likely, agreeing to partition the globe into separate spheres of influence with the Nazis.
Without the Battle of Britain, Europe would now be an ethnically cleansed, unified Fascist state and God alone knows what the rest of the world would look like.

Answer 7

I say yes. Sunshine (above) is wrong, the Americans weren't yet in the war and would probably have stayed on the sidelines had Hitler won the Battle of Britain and invaded. Hitler's generals were apparently furious with him - behind his back naturally - for opening up war on 2 fronts. But if Britain had been knocked out, they'd have been fully supportive of invading Russia and he'd have had a much better chance of success.
So, perhaps the key to the whole thing was, as mentioned above, Goering's failure to destroy our radar and eliminate the RAF.

Answer 8

No. They might have won the Battle of Britain but with the USA in the war they wouldn't have won the war. Actually the British would have fought a really tough battle against invading Germans.

Answer 9

'air superiority' was one of the great myths that wwii finally exploded. where air cover can support the movement of ground troops (as in much of the war in north africa) it is highly useful (though far from crucial). in the absence of the ability to move ground troops air superiority is irrelevant (the early stages of the battle of the bulge, and the whole of the war in vietnam).

winning the battle of britain would have given germany air superiority over the british isles. but for this to matter at all there would need to be german troops on mainland britain. no cross-channel invasion had succeeded for almost a thousand years.

by 1944 the allies had air superiority at will over the french mainland, and massive materiel advantages in ships, tanks, troops, armour, and weaponry. they were still so uncertain that a cross-channel strike could succeed that before d- day eisenhower prepared three draft press statements. one to be used in the event of a massive and disastrous defeat on the normandy beaches. one if the landings failed, but were followed by a successful retreat. and only one to cover the unlikely event that the allies got off the beaches.

when the allied armies did get off the beaches on d-day people started talking about 'the magic army'.

which it was.

Answer 10

Probably not. It was always Hitlers intention to attack the Soviet Union and this would have come sooner or later whether the Battle of Britain were won or lost, and since his tactical view precluded supplying his troops with winter clothing and vehicles which did not freeze up the Russian winter would always have got them. They would still have attacked Stalingrad - this was a huge target for them and an enormous asset for the Red Army to defend.