Why the Nazis lost

In your interesting Why Did the Allies Win WWII? debate (May), a better question to pose might have been: “Why did Germany lose WWII?” Here, as in most cases, the outcome was determined by which side had the strongest economic and logistical capacity. History is full of examples where the losers win most of the battles but ultimately collapse because of materiel shortages resulting from combinations of poor organisation, low industrialisation levels and international isolation.

Despite acquiring huge economic assets by 1940, the Nazis squandered them by imposing idiotic ideological practices. These included looting machine tools from factories, disdaining industrialisation (especially in refusing to embrace modern mass-production methods), and relying on inefficient slave labour. Even the relatively small British armaments industry was out-producing the Nazi empire in 1941, and Britain was further supported by American Lend-Lease products.

Harsh treatment and food shortages resulting from fixing German food prices ensured that even European ‘volunteer’ workers did not perform to their full potential. Instead, the hungry and resentful workforce sabotaged the production process whenever opportunities arose. For example, the French-made trucks in Wehrmacht service often broke down at the front, in some cases because their dipsticks were too short. The Nazis could never win a long war with their peculiar mindset, and their failure to seize most Soviet economic resources in 1941 meant that, even with a good campaigning year in 1942, any chance of winning was already negligible.

Paignton