Good thing the media handled matters differently back in the day. No doubt CBS or some other network would have decided it was their journalistic duty to publish the invasion details - ala broadcasting the story of breaking the Iranian code.

I don't see how the Germans would ever have been successful in an invasion of Britain. Their decision to not build 4-engine bombers kind of put the kibosh on any chance they would have had.

OJ, the French population the Germans had at their backs wasn't all *that* hostile. With 20/20 hindsight and a few tweaks, the Germans could have done it. As I recall, the U-boats came within weeks of starving Britain at one point, and the Luftwaffe came within weeks of destroying the RAF before Hitler, in retaliation for a raid on Berlin, ordered them to bomb cities instead of airfields. And the German army in France in '44 was a much tougher nut for an invader to crack than the British army would have been in '40-'41.

Bartman is right about the lack of heavy bombers, but you don't need long-range aircraft if you are just flying from France to England.

Papaya:

They never could have ebven attempted a crossing without being able to move significant numbers of troops there for the attack and subsequent conquest. Where were they going to come from? Even the French are mildly dangerous without guns held to their heads.

I suspect a fair percentage of the French populace would not have minded the British getting a black eye from the Germans.

The Germans could have invaded and probably held territory, but they never would have subjugated England the way they did France. They would not have found enough collaborators, especially among the leadership. Churchill would have killed any who tried to turn.

What's risible is the notion that England would not have fallen, in time, if the US had not lent any support, and Germany had not invaded Russia.

Given enough time to regroup and prepare, a pan-European German Empire would have had the resources to take England.

Further, they wouldn't have had to.
As someone suggested a while back, England would have become a client satellite state.

What an extraordinary faith you have in Nazism, that the Germans could have controlled Europe from the Bering straits to Ireland and points south. Hard to believe the Reich didn't quite make it a thousand years given this obvious efficacy.

I have no faith in Nazism, but I do have faith in authoritative governments and dictators.

Why do you assume that when the Nazis collapsed, all the conquered nations would be free to go their own way ?

They'd simply be part of a German-run Empire that was controlled by a non-Nazi strongman.

Actually, somewhat like what the EU is striving for: One currency, one foreign policy, and one legal system.

Yes, so what's your point? We fought a war to prevent what we've caused? You consider getting the opposite of what we wanted a success?

OJ:

That's specious. The war could hardly have been fought with the EU in mind.

Nazism failed because they forgot the main lesson of WWI: don't fight a two-front war.

We were front number two.

Why? We won in Europe and the Pacific. The lesson was democracies beat tyrannies.

The lesson was that in this case, democracy beat tyranny.

My main point is that if you'd just probe a little further with your alternate-reality device, you'd see that we're both right, in some cases England was able to stand alone against Germany, in others, not.

What we're arguing about is which is more likely.
You believe that England could have stood alone against an inept and imploding conquering force.
I believe that you mischaracterize Germany and German forces, and thus assign England a far greater relative strength than she actually possessed.

Remember, your formative thesis is that the US should have stayed out of the European theatre of WWII.

They couldn't even beat the equally inept Red Army. They weren't going to lauch a successful cross channel invasion. In particular, had we simply agreed to help the Brits and stay out of Europe the issue would have been settled.

What the Germans couldn't beat, (and as had defeated others before), was the Russian winter and vast territory.

However, Russia and Germany would have come to some agreement had not FDR promised Stalin that the US would open a second front in '42. And '43...

If it had been clear to Stalin that the US would not be doing anything militarily in Europe, Germany's Eastern Front would have ended a bit differently.

Germany didn't have to launch a cross-channel invasion, just pound the stuffing out of England with air raids and V-2 rockets.
Recall, at the end of the war Germany had primative jet aircraft.
How would England have handled that challenge alone ?

"In particular, had we simply agreed to help the Brits and stay out of Europe the issue would have been settled."

I agree, but that wasn't your starting point.
That's actually MY starting point, so I'm glad to see that you're a bit flexible in your approach to alternative history.

Michael:

Hitler dated the Slavs and the Communists and admired the Anglos. The war that mattered to him was in the East. A wiser Britain would have reached the agreement and told him to go destroy himself and Stalin.

Michael:

OJ also conveniently neglects the men and materiele pinned down along the Channel, never mind those used up defending against the air war.

Any meaningful alternative history would have to include what might have happened had those resources been free to pester the Russians.

The Germans would have been pinned down trying to adminster an occippied country many times their size. An excellent outcome.