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1958showtime t1_j636vxl wrote

Reply to comment by mmmmmmBacon12345 in ELI5: How is donating equipment to participate in war, not considered going to war? by lloyd705

Yup, WW2 was the perfect example. Hitler didn't need to declare war on the US, the US were only at war with Japan. Hitler did the US a favour by declaring war. Once he did, the US no longer had to jump through hoops to participate or keep sending aid.

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bacharelando t1_j63mp6v wrote

I think the US would join the war even if Germany didn't declare on them. But it sure made the US population more keen to fight when war was declared upon them than the contrary.

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1958showtime t1_j63pmk8 wrote

Eventually, probably. But that's what I meant and that's the point. Hitler did the US a favour. And until he did, the US was jumping through hoops to justify sending all the aid and kit they were sending to England.

When the US joined the war in Europe, England was the last one standing and super close to defeat. Any later and the war could have turned out VERY differently.

Edit - on top of that, the US were already at war with Japan. If Hitler didn't declare, there was a huge possibility that congress and public opinion would have forced the administration to stop sending aid to England, so all resources could be focused on the actual war with Japan. But as it turned out, Hitler was his own worse enemy and declared war on the US 'cuz reasons', and the US did what it did.

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bacharelando t1_j63qmef wrote

When the US joined the Soviet Union was already fighting. Britain wasn't on the verge of defeat at all. They're being bombed, sure, but they were under no risk of a naval invasion. The USSR on the other hand was getting brutally attacked in its own soil.

In 4 years of war (for the USSR) they have lost about 25 million lives. 6,25 million deaths per year.

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1958showtime t1_j63wz6t wrote

Even if the UK could continue to hold out, they could barely afford to counterattack, which effectively means they're a non factor and Hitler can focus all of his forces east, and those soviet casualties would be MUCH higher.

Point is, is if Hitler didn't declare war on the US, those few extra weeks/months could have resulted in a significantly different outcome. But as it is, Hitler did, and the rest is history. Literally.

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bacharelando t1_j65zis3 wrote

Yeah, there's a lot of factors and variables to calculate. We can never know what could have happened, only speculate on it. Personally I think that Germany could never capitulate the UK nor the US. Maybe they could try something on the UK if they did develop nukes earlier than the yankees and capitulated the USSR...

But even then, knowing very well what nazis do to communists and Slavs, the USSR would fight to the last person to win. I don't think Germany would ever be a par with USSR's manpower, industry and military genius (of course they got beaten hard in the first two years of war, but they managed to comeback). I think even on a 1v1 Germany would eventually lose. Idk.

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