re: Hot take on Germany’s invasion of the USSR

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we should not have involved ourselves in the European theater of either World War.

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When Hitler declared war on us we had no choice

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Not enough and not early enough in the war. Raeder, the admiral of the kriegsmarine, advocated for surface warships. It wasn’t until Donitz took over that Hitler was convinced on the UBoat strategy whole heartedly.

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And the Uboats were slaughtered throughout the war. Germany’s modern battleships and cruisers scared the shite out of the British and Americans. If the Brits don’t get lucky against Bismarck then the Atlantic routes to the western approaches is cut off due to Bismarck’s presence. RAF would’ve had to divert massive resources to sink Bismarck instead of other missions. The truth is that you could’ve built hundreds of more Uboats and it wouldn’t have meant anything.

The bigger "What if?" for me regards the Mediterranean. Instead of making the Channel Dash northwards and pigeonholing their surface assets in the North Sea and Norway; what if they ran them South past Gibralter into the Med. Scharnhorst, Gneissnau, Tirpitz plus all the other surface ships could have hooked up with the Regia Marina and shut down Royal Navy. With unfettered naval and air superiority, Malta falls. Axis resupply of Rommel is no longer problematic. If they knock out the British Eighth Army in '41 and take Egypt their fuel situation for the rest of the war is hugely eased. (I'm guessing at this point, Churchill acquiesces and sues for peace to save the Empire). If Hitler didn't have such a limited strategic outlook, the first primary stipulation with France should have been to turn their entire navy over to the Kriegsmarine. That would have made the Afrika Korps campaign even easier.

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Germany’s modern battleships and cruisers scared the shite out of the British and Americans. If the Brits don’t get lucky against Bismarck then the Atlantic routes to the western approaches is cut off due to Bismarck’s presence. RAF would’ve had to divert massive resources to sink Bismarck instead of other missions. The truth is that you could’ve built hundreds of more Uboats and it wouldn’t have meant anything.

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and Hitler hid his battleships after the Bismarck. They used a ton of ships and an aircraft carrier to sink the Bismarck pretty quickly. Ask merchant marines off the east coast, Caribbean, and the Gulf of America if they would’ve liked more UBoats. It took awhile for the strategy against UBoats to became more effective. In ‘41, the strategy of deploying aircraft and escort destroyers with enhanced tracking capabilities hadn’t caught on yet.

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what if they ran them South past Gibralter into the Med. Scharnhorst, Gneissnau, Tirpitz plus all the other surface ships could have hooked up with the Regia Marina and shut down Royal Navy.

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Torpedo bait.

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the first primary stipulation with France should have been to turn their entire navy over to the Kriegsmarine

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They would still have been bottled up in the Med, awaiting slow depreciation from the air.

Germany didn't have a path to winning by starting the war in 1939. They jumped the gun, and the result was always inevitable.

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Most of the Hungarian Jews died in 1944 when Germany was already on the collapse. You would think the priority would’ve been to win the war instead of killing Jews. What do I know though?

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I think winning the war was their top priority. All those Jews just starved to death. There's footage to back that up, FFS.

Zyklon B, "death camps," lampshades made of Jew skin- it's all theatrics. It's comforting for people to think of the Nazis as the diabolical supervillain types. The actual truth, that the Nazis were just a typical "big government" political party who ran out of money, would terrify many of us.

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No, Germany would never have been capable of invading the US. Everyone already knows that.

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This is where Man in the High Castle begins

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And leave the military districts and factories churning without issue?

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What good are brand new tanks and trucks without fuel to have them run? Everything in Russia would be done with horse and buggy. It would’ve crippled them, and it’s part of the reason why Japan felt the need for imperialism expansion.
I’ll keep entertaining you then.

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They used a ton of ships and an aircraft carrier to sink the Bismarck pretty quickly.

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They got lucky to knock out their rudder. And Bismarck still took hundreds of direct hits from Rodney and KGV for her guns to be silenced. Bismarck was not easily dispatched by any means. Her crew scuttled her and she was torpedoed.

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Ask merchant marines off the east coast, Caribbean, and the Gulf of America if they would’ve liked more UBoats. It took awhile for the strategy against UBoats to became more effective. In ‘41, the strategy of deploying aircraft and escort destroyers with enhanced tracking capabilities hadn’t caught on yet.

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I don’t disagree that plenty more u-boats would have made a difference but by 1943 their effectiveness was rapidly declining. The battleships and cruisers threatened not only the commerce but the royal navy itself. The destruction of the surface fleet was paramount because they knew that without a surface threat they could focus on escorts to defeat the u-boat threat.