Germany did not lose the Battle of Britain

[Former_Older]

Originally Posted by planespotter

New article by Heinkill:

While the British regard the Battle of Britain as an epic struggle which resulted in a resounding victory, there is evidence that it barely registered in German consciousness in 1940 and is still of only minor significance today.

The first thing that strikes you researching German language internet or published sources about the Battle of Britain, is how scarce they are.

Partly, this can be due to the old adage, “History is written by the victors”, but it also signals that this is a chapter in German history which German historians and even aviation enthusiasts, do not regard the same way British scholars do.

How can this be? Read more!

http://www.freewebs.com/heinkill/booksfilmssites.htm

Revisionist history is often incapable of supporting itself. This is but another example of that

Did Germany lose the Battle of Britain?

Yes. Unless my memory has completely failed me, the criteria for launching Operation Sea Lion had two main facets:

1) elimination of the Royal Navy as a threat to the operation
2) elimination of the Royal Air Force as a threat to the operation

I don't have to cite History for evidence that Operation Sea Lion did not occur. We all know this. But completely apart from the invasion of England, it is very easy to explain why Germany lost the Battle of Britian:

It was the first time they faltered in Europe. They quite obviously tried to win the aerial fight over Britain in 1940

They failed. They lost the Battle. No amount of cutesy revision will sponge that away. making soft excuses like "it barely registered in the German consciousness" is nothing more than a way to introduce a gray area into the argument; it admits defeat by association and admission of something less than what was attempted. I'm sorry, but those are the facts. You can't call a defeat a victory by skewing the events 70 years later, so that it can be looked at in a 'certain point of view'. Germany demonstrably failed to achieve their goals in the Battle of Britain

Failing to achieve your goals in battle never results in your victory. Never.

if you can explain to me just how Germany's goals were achieved in the Battle of Britain, then I will agree with your standpoint. Until then, I will simply tell you that the entire reason Hitler sent planes over England in the summer of 1940 was not so that his young men and Churchill's young men could have a little football match- Germany's goals were not met, and not meeting your goals in battle is the definition of "defeat"

[ElAurens]

Thank you Mr. Older.

I really fear for the generations younger than myself, as they can so easily fail to grasp the obvious, and hence are manipulated by those who indeed would change history for their benefit.

[96th_Nightshifter]

Originally Posted by Former_Older

if you can explain to me just how Germany's goals were achieved in the Battle of Britain, then I will agree with your standpoint. Until then, I will simply tell you that the entire reason Hitler sent planes over England in the summer of 1940 was not so that his young men and Churchill's young men could have a little football match- Germany's goals were not met, and not meeting your goals in battle is the definition of "defeat"

Well said.

[revi]

Germany's goals were not met, and not meeting your goals in battle is the definition of "defeat"

I agree wholeheartedly. There is no 'grey' in what happened. It was a defeat because of all the reasons you have laid out. Any other way of looking at is pathetic. If you follow the other side of this argument, you might soon be saying, Germany did not lose the war.

[Avimimus]

Originally Posted by *Buzzsaw*

Fact: Hitler ordered Goring, the leader of the Luftwaffe, to lay the groundwork for a successful invasion by gaining air superiority over the English Channel and southern England. The means to this end was the defeat of the RAF.

I agree with the point. Although it is highly unlikely that Sea Lion could have ever taken place. Air superiority was just out of reach and naval superiority would have been even more difficult. Only a psychological or political victory could have actually worked (despite the dreams of the Nazi leadership).

If you can find a scenario where it could have come about, I'd be very happy for the "beachhead defense" Lysander fieldmods.

Originally Posted by Former_Older

Failing to achieve your goals in battle never results in your victory. Never.

This statement is clearly flawed. This isn't directed at you sir, but at the whole room as many may share you're opinion. I might even say it is naive and dangerous. For one thing one doesn't always know what the prerequisites for or impact of a victory may be. In the second Iraq war we recently achieved our goals and it did not bring victory, in Vietnam we achieved goals for body count numbers and those goals did not bring victory.

Lets take one example: If Germany had failed in the battle of France it is much more likely that the Allies could have made peace. If the Allies had done this than Nazi Germany could have continued trading with the United States, and, even if an embargo appeared, traded directly with smaller supplying countries. There would even have been a strong group of sympathisers for the fight against the Bolsheviks. Such a position would have moved Germany much closer to victory once the Great Patriotic War started.

So one can go from an apparent strategic failure to a strategic victory (if one doesn't understand or can't control for all of the factors this is always possible). There are certainly many other cases of tactic failures leading to strategic victories.

[brando]

Lets take one example: If Germany had failed in the battle of France it is much more likely that the Allies could have made peace. If the Allies had done this than Nazi Germany could have continued trading with the United States, and, even if an embargo appeared, traded directly with smaller supplying countries. There would even have been a strong group of sympathisers for the fight against the Bolsheviks. Such a position would have moved Germany much closer to victory once the Great Patriotic War started.

No offence, but I find this statement both highly unlikely and faintly ludicrous. The world had already been alarmed by Germany's move to Nazism in the 20s and 30s and, although there was some support for Adolf Hitler's social policies (full employment, national identity, anti-communism) among the upper classes, there was a much greater groundswell of support for Communism amongst the working classes in France & Great Britain. In hindsight we can see that both opinions were delusive as far as the reality was concerned, but it's hard to imagine that any assault on Russia would have been supported even by the Americans.

It's necessary to look at what was going on with regard to Hitler's other policies especially the eradication of Jewry and anyone else who didn't fit into his crazy notions of racial purity. If the German army had been beaten at the French border then more than peace would have ensued; the Allied nations would have fully mobilised and invaded Germany, and the conditions of the Versailles Treaty would have been enforced again. The sinister side of Nazism would have been revealed in that process and I cannot believe that America would have failed to act on those revelations.

B

[Former_Older]

Originally Posted by Avimimus

Former_Older said:
"Failing to achieve your goals in battle never results in your victory. Never."

This statement is clearly flawed. This isn't directed at you sir, but at the whole room as many may share you're opinion. I might even say it is naive and dangerous. For one thing one doesn't always know what the prerequisites for or impact of a victory may be. In the second Iraq war we recently achieved our goals and it did not bring victory, in Vietnam we achieved goals for body count numbers and those goals did not bring victory.

So one can go from an apparent strategic failure to a strategic victory (if one doesn't understand or can't control for all of the factors this is always possible). There are certainly many other cases of tactic failures leading to strategic victories.

Your use of "sir" combined with your general tone tells me something here. Please remember that I am replying to your comments and that I did not initiate this exchange; you desired to call me out on "dangerous and naive" comments, so this is not my doing, OK?

I said quite clearly "Failing to achieve your goals in battle never results in victory", and I am quite clearly restricting ALL my statements on the matter to the topic of discussion, which is ONE battle, not all of WWII

I did not say "You must win every battle to win a war", which are the words you are attempting to cram down my throat. You are skewing my words to alter my meaning, and you are attempting to expand the subject FAR in excess of the topic my statements were made about. You desire to make me have said "Losing a Battle means you lose the war or a campaign", when you know I was specifically commenting on the issue at hand: The Battle of Britain. Not WWII as a whole or even Hitler's European campaign

You know quite well that we are talking about ONE battle, and my words are in reference to that ONE battle. I did not expand the discussion to include how a tactical failure today can or cannot lead to a strategic victory tomorrow- YOU have just introduced that aspect. I am commenting on the Battle of Britain, not the whole of WWII.

On one hand, it's quite insulting to everyone in the discussion since you decided to paint everyone with all the same brush, and on the other, it's quite a negative comment on me personally in regards to my intellect. Obviously you can see I'm a little aware of myself and what's going on so please consider your comments more carefully when you try to show me how dumb I am in the future, and think twice before you try to put words in my mouth

Far from being a "naive and dangerous" statement of mine, you have taken my words not only out of my intended context, but even out of the context of the discussion. I can't quite see how everyone else here knows exactly what was said but you don't, but I'll try to clarify for you:

I did not say:

Failing to achieve your goals in battle never results in winning a war. Never. [future tense]

I DID say:

Failing to achieve your goals in battle never results in your victory. Never. [present tense]


Is that clear as crystal yet? Are my statements now beyond distortion? I didn't say that once you lose a battle, the war is lost. That is a simplistic and wooden-headed statement you are trying to attribute to me and I'd appreciate it if you would stop putting words in my mouth

"Tactical" and "Strategic" victories and how they effect the course of the war is not the topic. I am not here talking about the outcome of the war as affected by the dynamic influence of a series of campaigns. So my statement stands regardless of how you intend to twist and pervert it. You can't take what I said hours ago, change the topic to what YOU want to talk about, and then tell me how wrong I am. If you want to discuss how losing a battle can result in winning a war I will not disagree with you, but that is not what I and everyone else here are discussing

Please explain to me how the failure of Germany to secure their goals during the Battle of Britain resulted in their Victory in the Battle of Britain

If you can do that, I'll agree with you


(I apologize for the edits- I just got a new PC with a new low-profile keyboard and I'm mis-typing a lot of things)

[Avimimus]

Originally Posted by Former_Older

You know quite well that we are talking about ONE battle, and my words are in reference to that ONE battle. I did not expand the discussion to include how a tactical failure today can or cannot lead to a strategic victory tomorrow- YOU have just introduced that aspect. I am commenting on the Battle of Britain, not the whole of WWII.

On one hand, it's quite insulting to everyone in the discussion since you decided to paint everyone with all the same brush, and on the other, it's quite a negative comment on me personally in regards to my intellect. Obviously you can see I'm a little aware of myself and what's going on so please consider your comments more carefully when you try to show me how dumb I am in the future, and think twice before you try to put words in my mouth

Far from being a "naive and dangerous" statement of mine, you have taken my words not only out of my intended context, but even out of the context of the discussion. I can't quite see how everyone else here knows exactly what was said but you don't, but I'll try to clarify for you:

I did not say:

Failing to achieve your goals in battle never results in winning a war. Never. [future tense]

I DID say:

Failing to achieve your goals in battle never results in your victory. Never. [present tense]


Is that clear as crystal yet? Are my statements now beyond distortion? I didn't say that once you lose a battle, the war is lost. That is a simplistic and wooden-headed statement you are trying to attribute to me and I'd appreciate it if you would stop putting words in my mouth

"Tactical" and "Strategic" victories and how they effect the course of the war is not the topic. I am not here talking about the outcome of the war as affected by the dynamic influence of a series of campaigns. So my statement stands regardless of how you intend to twist and pervert it. You can't take what I said hours ago, change the topic to what YOU want to talk about, and then tell me how wrong I am. If you want to discuss how losing a battle can result in winning a war I will not disagree with you, but that is not what I and everyone else here are discussing

Please explain to me how the failure of Germany to secure their goals during the Battle of Britain resulted in their Victory in the Battle of Britain

If you can do that, I'll agree with you

My apologies

1. You treat me as being far too clever than I am. I didn't twist the topic around to another one, I really believed we were talking about another one from the very beginning. I take it your goal was simply to dismiss any arguments that the Germans didn't fail to achieve their goals for the Battle of Britain. At the same time I simply assumed that discussing any past campaign (despite having 20/20 hindsight) is essentially similar to discussing a present or future campaign.

In my mind you can't simply demonstrate what happened or why what happened was inevitable. Instead one must consider the full range of decisions that could have been made, their implications in the complex military/civilian environment, the failures of the command staff's understanding and a variety of scenarios (including counter-factual ones). This is a very different goal.

So, I was thinking about all of the long term implications that the battle of Britain could have had on the outcome of the war (as opposed to the the extensive failure to achieve the goals set by the German high command for the operation).

2. The key point is confusion over the term "Victory". I generally equate it with a long-standing sustainable success. It is the outcome of a war or a major part of a war that later has long term positive impacts on civilian policy. This is how I've always used the word and seems to be the main source of confusion.

3. This particular the phrase was also important: "Failing to achieve your goals in battle never results in your victory. Never."
This seemed to be a generalisation to all wars, past, present and future. Doing such would require not viewing a military action in the context of the larger, complex chain of events or civilian goals is indeed dangerous and naive. I suspect that you would agree with this.

No one familiar with military history could possibly maintain the position you seemed to be given the complexities of outcomes of decisions in warfare (no plan surviving contact with the enemy &C). I actually realised that it was very unlikely that you maintained such a position, but I was unable (for unrelated reasons) to return to the computer to reread what you wrote and to correct my post.

So, certainly the following statement is one I would agree with: "Failing to achieve your goals in battle never results in your achievement of your goals in the same battle. Never."

We probably are in agreement on most if not all points and this was simply due to a difference in the use of language and a couple mistakes in how the arguments were made (in particular my use of the word naive).

S!

[Former_Older]

I should say sorry too for being a little too...confrontative. I do think though that you should use my comments in the context for which they were uttered

[Roy]

Originally Posted by Avimimus

This statement is clearly flawed. This isn't directed at you sir, but at the whole room as many may share you're opinion. I might even say it is naive and dangerous. For one thing one doesn't always know what the prerequisites for or impact of a victory may be. In the second Iraq war we recently achieved our goals and it did not bring victory, in Vietnam we achieved goals for body count numbers and those goals did not bring victory.

Achieving goals and not being victorious is one thing. NOT achieving goals and being victorious is something completely different. Both examples you provided (that are quite the opposite of what Former_Older said) could lead to several pages of discussion about who won/lost depending on the point of view, but that's another topic.

While there may be cases where you can fail certain goals and still be victorius (extreme example: if winning a war implies being victorious and the goal is to have less than X casualties in said war, you can fail that goal and still "win") it is not the case for Former Older's post!