No. Well actually there are semi defensible scenarios where the Nazis could have won Europe but they’re extremely unlikely. I was going to answer just “No.” but the following factors suggest an even more freakishly lucky Nazi regime could have beaten the Soviet Union and the war in Europe was in reality the Soviets versus the Nazis because that conflict was existential once it began.
Evidence the Soviets could have lost
At one stage over 100% of Soviet GDP was going to the military.
The Soviets came quite close to losing 10% of their male population in WW2.
The GDP point means that all non-military economic activity was being supported by external subsidy, i.e. the USA and lendlease. The casualties as a percentage of population are suggestive because it took killing 30% of the male population to convert the Afghans to Islam and this seems a reasonable upper bound on the proportion of a population you need to kill to make a cultural change in a non state society permanently at war. Any more complex society, like the Soviets had will be less robust than that.
But in all seriousness the Soviets could have won the war without the British Empire or Americans committing combat troops, maybe not without economic support. The Nazis were not getting nukes so once anyone on the other side did they were doomed. The Japanese were doomed absent extraterrestrial intervention. I mean that literally. If a meteorite of sufficient size had landed on a major US city maybe the US would have pulled out. Otherwise the Japanese were fucked from the word go. The Italians are irrelevant.
For the easiest data point against the possibility of WW2 being lost by the Allies consider this; the Allies had over 50% of World GDP and had integrated battlegroups, command and control and economic planning. The Nazis had the Italians for allies and could not meaningfully link up with the Japanese.
Absent rocks from space the maximal surviving Nazi state is one of
Hitler dies after annexing Czechoslovakia.
Hitler dies after dividing Poland with Stalin.
I don’t think Stalin would have started a war with a post Hitler Nazi regime so scenario 2 is plausible but scenario 1 is overwhelmingly probable.
My personal favorite theory is that the cold war was quantum suicide on a species-wide level. Since you seem versed in history: seen in counterfactual retrospective, how likely was our survival?
I amn’t that well versed in history but if we could somehow check all branches after V-J Day nuclear weapons being used in anger by one or both sides in 1⁄4 of them would not surprise me. Do keep in mind that it was the 80s before nuclear war would be civilisation ending. Europe and the Soviet Union were toast given nuclear war from ’50 maybe, North America had to wait for ICBMs to be screwed given nuclear war and I can’t remember if it was Brazil or Australia that were the last places to be targetted by civilisation ending numbers of bombs.
Quantam species suicide I doubt. By the time we could end civilisation the Soviet union was a gerontocracy, albeit one that truly thought the US was an existential enemy when it was barely an enemy. but hey, Stanislav Petrov. I don’t know.
We did?
No. Well actually there are semi defensible scenarios where the Nazis could have won Europe but they’re extremely unlikely. I was going to answer just “No.” but the following factors suggest an even more freakishly lucky Nazi regime could have beaten the Soviet Union and the war in Europe was in reality the Soviets versus the Nazis because that conflict was existential once it began.
Evidence the Soviets could have lost
At one stage over 100% of Soviet GDP was going to the military.
The Soviets came quite close to losing 10% of their male population in WW2.
The GDP point means that all non-military economic activity was being supported by external subsidy, i.e. the USA and lendlease. The casualties as a percentage of population are suggestive because it took killing 30% of the male population to convert the Afghans to Islam and this seems a reasonable upper bound on the proportion of a population you need to kill to make a cultural change in a non state society permanently at war. Any more complex society, like the Soviets had will be less robust than that.
But in all seriousness the Soviets could have won the war without the British Empire or Americans committing combat troops, maybe not without economic support. The Nazis were not getting nukes so once anyone on the other side did they were doomed. The Japanese were doomed absent extraterrestrial intervention. I mean that literally. If a meteorite of sufficient size had landed on a major US city maybe the US would have pulled out. Otherwise the Japanese were fucked from the word go. The Italians are irrelevant.
For the easiest data point against the possibility of WW2 being lost by the Allies consider this; the Allies had over 50% of World GDP and had integrated battlegroups, command and control and economic planning. The Nazis had the Italians for allies and could not meaningfully link up with the Japanese.
Absent rocks from space the maximal surviving Nazi state is one of
Hitler dies after annexing Czechoslovakia.
Hitler dies after dividing Poland with Stalin.
I don’t think Stalin would have started a war with a post Hitler Nazi regime so scenario 2 is plausible but scenario 1 is overwhelmingly probable.
My personal favorite theory is that the cold war was quantum suicide on a species-wide level. Since you seem versed in history: seen in counterfactual retrospective, how likely was our survival?
I amn’t that well versed in history but if we could somehow check all branches after V-J Day nuclear weapons being used in anger by one or both sides in 1⁄4 of them would not surprise me. Do keep in mind that it was the 80s before nuclear war would be civilisation ending. Europe and the Soviet Union were toast given nuclear war from ’50 maybe, North America had to wait for ICBMs to be screwed given nuclear war and I can’t remember if it was Brazil or Australia that were the last places to be targetted by civilisation ending numbers of bombs.
Quantam species suicide I doubt. By the time we could end civilisation the Soviet union was a gerontocracy, albeit one that truly thought the US was an existential enemy when it was barely an enemy. but hey, Stanislav Petrov. I don’t know.