Why didn’t Hitler End the War when he Failed to get the OIL of the Caucasus?

My Patreon, Elon Musk, has asked a long question about the oil situation in the Third Reich during World War Two. I’ve covered this topic before in the past, and he’s not the only one to push back on the narrative I subscribe to. Since history lies in the heart of the debate, it is important that I address questions like this, because if I can’t do so satisfactory, then perhaps the narrative I subscribe to is wrong.

Perhaps. I don’t think it is, but anyway, here’s what he said - Hi Tik. I love your work and thoroughly enjoy your videos and appreciate your WW2 insight a great deal.

Keep it up! I have two questions, I will post them in different messages as they might constitute two distinct topics for videos. Question nr.

1. I have been meaning to ask you this for a long time, I previously wrote a long message where I included many interesting accounts with sources for each one, in before a power cut, and the message was permanently lost. However I will try to reproduce it briefly: The fact that Hitler did not end the war after realising the oil in the Caucuses was out of reach due to the ovewhelming defeats and Soviet counterattacks.

You quoted Hitler as saying “If we cannot get the Caucus oil, then I must end the war”. I have watched and thoroughly enjoyed your video on this topic. However a couple questions have arised that I haven’t been able to answer, you are much more informed than me, maybe you can help clear it up.

Not only did Hitler not end the war when the hypothesis of capturing Caucuses oil was done with and the soviets were on massive counterattacks and gaining ground quickly versus the Germans on the eastern front, Hitler also did not end the war on D-Day, nor after the crucial Ardennes defeat. At this point Germany was fighting on two fronts by itself with the world’s top military superpowers, getting bombed daily and had dire oil prospects as Caucuses was permanently out of the equation and Romania also switched sides. If it is all about the oil, why did Hitler not end the war sooner?

A conclusion easily drawn would be that oil, as important as it was, wasn’t everything that kept Hitler going. His hope must have been also been fueled by other prospects, maybe atomic/nuclear bombs and missiles, although I heard the germans weren’t actually making any real progress on the nuclear program because Hitler insisted on wanting to fight conventionally, and the Germans were already on such intensive bombing raids that they could not develop a nuclear arsenal in that situation. If Germany’s participation in the war would solely depend on capturing the oil, I think we both agree that Herman Goering, the 2nd man in German State, would be well aware of this situation.

However, Goering seems to disagree. Quote - The Nuremberg Interviews, Leon Goldensohn (interviewing Herman Goering) - page 111 “I asked him when he first thought that Germany was defeated. He seemed thoughtful.

I asked him if it was possibly at the time of D-Day in Normandy. Goering said emphatically, “No, that was far from the end. The situation was not bad at all until Ardennes.

It was only then that things began to look dangerous. Field Marshal Guenther Hans von Kluge didn’t do his duty. He could have closed up his tanks.

He didn’t do that and had to retreat. He poisoned himself later. ” I asked him why Kluge had not done his duty.

“Well, it isn’t settled yet. He wanted to meet a high English officer and betray Hitler. It’s another example of the generals making an about-face and double-crossing Hitler.

” Leaving aside the accusations of generals not doing a good job and/or betraying Hitler, when asked about it he characterizes the German situation after D-Day as “not bad at all”. The second man in the German state would have definetely mentioned the oil if that was truly the only thing their warfare needed and it sat on their mind, but he didn’t. Goering said they were “not bad at all”, as if they were not lacking anything of substance.

Therefore, Hitler who vowed “If we cannot get the oil in the Caucuses, then I must end this war”, proceeds by not ending the war and does not see an immediate prompt to end the war, not after the permanent Caucuses cause loss, not after D-Day, not after Romanian switches sides together with its oil, and not after Ardennes, and Herman Goering, the 2nd man in the German State, does not see the lack of oil as the ultimate concern also. Despite fighting 2 fronts agains the combined military mights of England, USA, and Russia by itself, getting air raided and bombed daily to a very hash degree, and grim oil prospects, Germany still did not see fit to end the war. Why?

I hope you can shed light on this, maybe you know something that I don’t. My opinion is, as Alfred Jodl said and I do believe he told the truth, that the German Intelligence Service was working partly with the Allies and the intelligence the German State has received was either evazive, inconclusive or deceiving. Some sources claim most of the German spies abroad have turned double in order to save their lives.

Bad intelligence and maybe not so great generals (In Leon Goldensohn’s book you can read many interesting stories and accounts of German generals that haven’t really done a good job - I know you might believe the Nuremberg defendents are not the best source, however these stories have nothing to do with their trial or their aquittal, many of them praise Hitler’s military planning and strategic skills on and on, this is definetely not good to get them aquitted, therefore I think most of the time they actually shared their legitimate thoughts and stories, at least the ones that have nothing to do with their actual indictment counts, like some of the military stories). I look forward to your answer and I am letting you go for now with an unrelated to the question, but interesting excerpt from Herman Goering who did seem to realistically believe they could beat the Russians very fast in 1941. Quote from the Leon Goldensohn -Herman Goering Interview ”He asked me if I had spoken with Gerd von Rundstedt, since he had heard that the old field marshal recently came to this prison to testify for the general staff.

I replied that Rundstedt told me that he was an anti-Nazi and that the so-called Rundstedt Offensive should have been called the Hitler Offensive. 4 Goering smiled and nodded. “That’s correct.

It was the Hitler Offensive. It was brilliantly planned by Hitler but poorly executed by the generals. It was not Rundstedt who was at fault so much as Dietrich and his Sixth Army, which was not capable.

Dietrich was no army commander and should never have been made one. This Sixth Army was an all-motorized panzer force. The offensive itself was planned by a genius.

The Führer was himself a genius. The offensives against Poland and France were also his plans. The plan against Russia was also that of a genius, but its execution poor.

The Russian campaign could have ended in 1941 — successfully. ” There’s a lot to this question, so let’s start by tackling Göring’s perception of the war. Göring says the situation in 1944 was “not bad at all”, despite as you list, a million things going wrong at the time.

Let’s paint a picture here. They’re fighting a war on two fronts. They’re scraping the bottom of the manpower barrel.

They don’t have enough tanks. They don’t have enough oil. The entire Luftwaffe is basically grounded at this point.

They’d lost the Battle of the Atlantic (with the Allies arguably gaining dominance of the Atlantic by the end of May of 1943 roughly). They’re getting bombed to smithereens. Arguably they’re running out of food again, which is why they starve the Dutch.

And so on - there’s a million things going wrong for the Germans by 1944. Yet Göring doesn’t mention any of this. So obviously, if Göring doesn’t mention this stuff, and then says things were “not bad at all”, then I guess they did have enough men.

I guess they did have enough tanks. No. Obviously, these things were true, and Göring (for whatever reason) is downplaying them when he talks to Goldensohn in 1946.

Now, there could be many reasons why he’s doing this. He may not want to make the Germans look bad. He may want to make the Americans think it was them who won the war, rather than the Soviets, and so if he says the situation wasn’t too bad until the Americans defeated them at the Ardennes, then this would give them the impression that they were the ones who won the war (whereas, in reality, the Soviets had completely crushed the German Army in the East by this point).

It could also be that he genuinely believed Goebbels’ propaganda about super-weapons and all that other Jazz. I don’t know; I’m not going to pretend to fully understand Göring’s reasoning here. But what I can tell you is that - he’s wrong.

And we can see this in the passages that come before this point. You’ve already quoted Göring talking about the Ardennes Offensive, saying it was “brilliantly planned by Hitler” who was “a genius”, and that the “offensives against Poland and France were also his plans” as was the plan against the Soviet Union, which Göring said was “that of a genius”, but poorly executed. I mean, this is false.

The offensive in France was Manstein’s plan, not Hitler’s. Hitler also didn’t plan Operation Barbarossa - Paulus and Halder did (to name just a few of the people who were involved). And I certainly wouldn’t say that Operation Barbarossa was a “genius” plan, nor would I say that the Ardennes offensive in 1944 was “brilliant”.

“There was nothing inevitable about the Battle of the Bulge. It made no sense at the time, and makes none with hindsight. It was launched simply because of the vision, dogged determination and sheer willpower of one man, who ignored all professional military advice to not initiate it.

” They didn’t have enough fuel, and so the plan relied upon capturing Allied fuel stocks along the way. In fact, they only had enough fuel for six days of operations, which wasn’t enough for them to reach Antwerp. It’s certainly not the only reason they lost, but I would argue that - not having enough fuel to get to your objective, means that you’re going to lose the battle regardless of how well you do in the field.

So this wasn’t a “brilliant” plan by any stretch of the imagination, which is why the generals questioned it at the time. The point is that Göring is clearly not telling us the truth. A couple of days earlier, Goldensohn records that Göring said this - “If one went along with National Socialism one didn’t have to agree with the twenty-five points of their platform.

Some of us were more interested in one point, others in another. Some National Socialists were members for political, others for social, still others for racial reasons. ” Goldensohn asked - “Did he consider the race politics of the Nazis an intrinsic matter, or merely incidental?

” And Göring replied - “Not basic at all. Completely irrelevant and incidental. It only became basic or important because a faction of Nazis who were fanatic racial exponents became politically powerful.

Men like Rosenberg, Streicher, Himmler, and Goebbels. National Socialism could also have taken a much different course. ” Goldensohn asked - “Would he have approved of another course?

” Göring said - “Certainly. Many of us in the party were opposed to the sharp racial laws and politics but we were too busy. Political and economic strength are more important than all this racial propaganda.

” This is a load of rubbish. For starters, Hitler made it extremely clear in Mein Kampf that the racial world-view - the racial Weltanschauung - was absolutely essential to National Socialism because without it, you would just have Marxism. “The racial Weltanschauung [world view] is fundamentally distinguished from the Marxist by reason of the fact that the former recognizes the significance of race and therefore also personal worth and has made these the pillars of its structure.

These are the most important factors of its Weltanschauung. ” “If the National Socialist Movement should fail to understand the fundamental importance of this essential principle, if it should merely varnish the external appearance of the present State and adopt the majority principle, it would really do nothing more than compete with Marxism on its own ground. For that reason it would not have the right to call itself a Weltanschauung.

If the social programme of the movement consisted in eliminating personality and putting the multitude in its place, then National Socialism would be corrupted with the poison of Marxism, just as our national-bourgeois parties are. ” So when Göring says that racism was irrelevant to the Nazis - he’s lying. Racism was literally the blood that kept the entire ideological-body alive.

Then he tries to blame everyone else except for himself for being racist, even though it was Göring himself who complained in the aftermath of Kristallnacht, that the Jews were able to claim from the German insurance companies for the smashed glass and property. He said that he would rather have seen 200 Jews killed than the loss of property and thus the hit to German wealth. Göring was also the one who sent this letter to Reinhard Heydrich in the July of 1941, which said - “.

. . I hereby charge you to submit a comprehensive blueprint of the organizational, subject-related and material preparatory measures for the execution of the intended final solution to the Jewish question.

” At this time, the plan was to deport the Jews to the wastelands of the Soviet Union once they were captured. However, this was still bad because it was assumed that many would die in the process. Later, Göring also said - “This is the great racial war.

In the final analysis it is about whether the German and Aryan prevails here, or whether the Jew rules the world…” And there are more instances than just this, but you get the picture. Göring is trying to say that he wasn’t really interested in the racial-aspects of National Socialism, even though racism was fundamental to National Socialism, and the evidence points us to the conclusion that Göring wanted to remove the Jews from society just like every other National Socialist. This guy was clearly lying to Goldensohn in 1946 - as were the other generals and leaders.

They’re all trying to save their skins. Now, why exactly Göring would downplay the severity of the military situation in 1944, I’m not quite sure. But what I can confirm is that Göring knew about the oil crisis way before this point.

As Toprani and others point out, Göring was a central figure in the German economy, especially when talking about the oil crisis. Göring was granted massive power in 1936 to solve the economic crisis, itself largely brought upon by an energy crisis. The trade deficit was 500,000,000 Reichsmarks, and 162,000,000 of that was because of the need to import oil.

He went on to shape the oil policy, hoping to get Germany self-sufficient in oil by about 1938. By 1940 though, he had failed, and was trying to convince other officials that trading with the Soviet Union for raw materials (including oil) was “absolutely vital”. (Which it was.

) Göring then organized and chaired a number of oil conferences to try and sort the situation out. Keitel informed Göring on the 8th of March 1940 that the fuel situation had worsened to the point that - “. .

. large operations of the Army must be considered as endangered. ” In November 1940, Göring nominally took over the management of the petroleum industry, but unlike General Thomas, it seems that, while he understood it was an issue, he didn’t fully grasp the severity of the oil problem at the time.

And in February 1941, Thomas warned Göring, Keitel and others that the oil situation would only supply an offensive for two months, and that supplies would be exhausted by mid-August. Göring dismissed Thomas’s concerns, stating that the Soviet Union would collapse by that point anyway, and that they’d take oil facilities in the Baku region intact, since the collapse of the Soviet regime would mean they’d not have a chance to destroy them. Göring also created and signed the “Green Folder” document, which stated that the Germans would plunder the resources of the East, with the food and petroleum sectors of the economy being the focus.

“The main economic goal of the operation is to acquire for Germany as much food and petroleum as possible…” Göring also organized conferences with the Romanian dictator, Antonescu, and tried to get the Romanians to raise oil production. And he did many other things besides this in relation to oil. So, to say that Göring didn’t know about the oil situation would be false, because… well I would argue that it was Göring’s bubblings that actually contributed to the oil deficit.

Now, it does appear as though Göring dismissed the severity of the oil crisis in 1940 and 1941, or didn’t think it was such a big deal. And maybe that’s his genuine opinion. Göring may have been too dumb to realize that oil was a major concern, or he thought that the Soviet Union would collapse anyway and then they’d solve the issue.

But that doesn’t mean that it wasn’t a major issue. If Göring thinks the moon is made of cheese, that doesn’t mean it is. What Göring thinks, and what is reality, are two separate things.

As are the opinions of Göring in 1946 and what happened during the war. Either Göring is lying in 1946, or he’s giving you his genuine opinion. But that opinion is still wrong.

The situation by 1944 was desperate, right, including the oil crisis, but also the military crisis. For Göring to say it’s “not bad at all” should be an indication to you that he’s not telling the truth. Now, it’s true, Hitler did say - “If I do not get the oil of Maikop and Grozny, then I must end this war.

” And as Musk says, “If it is all about the oil, why did Hitler not end the war sooner? ” Well, even though the oil crisis is the main reason Hitler lost the war, it wasn’t the only reason. I have never said that the oil crisis was the only reason Hitler lost the war.

It was the main reason Hitler lost the war, but there were other factors too. The food crisis, for example, had the potential to cause them major problems, and could have resulted in them losing the war, but they managed to ‘solve’ it before it caused them a total collapse. And they solved it by starving millions of people, like the Greeks, for example.

They also had a lack of tanks and trucks, but I would say that was primarily brought on by the fuel crisis, which was the result of the oil crisis. Same with the lack of planes, or the inability to get them off the ground due to the lack of fuel. The two-front war was an issue, but Hitler had hoped to knock out the Soviet Union quickly in 1941 before the two-front problem became a real issue.

We know he failed to do that, but my argument is that the primary reason (not the only one) as to why he lost was because of the oil crisis. They ran out of fuel in the autumn of 1941, preventing them from reaching their objectives. So it’s not “all about the oil”.

Instead, oil is just the main reason for why they lost, not the only reason. So, why then did Hitler keep on fighting, if he didn’t get to Maikop and Grozny? Well, Maikop was recaptured by the Soviets in late January 1943, but the Germans were still in the Caucasus right up until the October of 1943, when they evacuated the last of the 17th Army from the Kuban Bridgehead.

Hitler wanted to strike once more into the Caucasus in 1943, but we know that that didn’t happen. So maybe Hitler hoped that he could still get the oil, which is why he didn’t give up in 1943. Hitler also seems to have thought that the Western Allies were the main threat, not the Soviets, which is what he said in Directive 51.

Perhaps he still thought he could win against the Soviets even without the oil, until the Western Allies arrived. Or maybe he had realized that the war was lost, but since Roosevelt had called for ‘Unconditional Surrender’ on the 24th of January 1943, Hitler couldn’t surrender when he was still in command of most of Europe. Then, once the Allies did arrived, and the Soviets smashed them in Operation Bagration, Hitler definitely knew the game was up, but had survived the 20th of July Plot.

And Hitler then interpreted his survival as though he was destined to lead Germany to victory. At this point, I would even accept the notion that Hitler was insane, and was clutching at straws. He was relying upon belief rather than objective reality.

He was believing in ‘miracle weapons’ and hoping that the Allies would end up fighting the Soviets with the Germans. He wouldn’t entertain the idea of negotiating with the Allies or the Soviets unless he was in a position of strength, which he wasn’t. Plus they would refuse to negotiate anyway now they were calling for unconditional surrender.

He was also insisting that his generals were at fault, pinning the blame on them, and I get the impression that he believed that his ‘military genius’ could bring about a miracle turnabout in the situation. But what’s also essential to understand is that, until 1945, Germany was still mostly fighting on foreign soil. The Allies and the Soviets had only just about reached the German borders.

In December 1944, Germany was back in her position of late 1939, after the invasion of Poland, but also had territory in Italy and the Balkans, plus Scandinavia. This was a similar situation to what the Germans had in 1918. And Hitler had made it super-clear in Mein Kampf and elsewhere about his views on the ‘Stab in the Back’ idea.

Yes, the ‘Stab in the Back’ didn’t actually happen, but Hitler believed that it did. And he had believed that the ‘Jews’ had been the ones who had instigated it. “.

. . the offensive would be effectively stopped and the Entente saved.

Then International Finance [the Capitalist-Jews] would assume control over Germany and the internal objective of the [Jewish] Marxist national betrayal would be achieved. ” So he absolutely didn’t want a repeat of this in 1945, which is why he said - “It must be our ambition also in our time to set an example for later generations to look to in similar crises and anxieties, just as we today have to look to the past heroes of history. The year 1918 will therefore not repeat itself.

” So, the reason Hitler didn’t end the war after not keeping hold of Maikop, or after massive defeats on the Eastern Front, or after D-Day or the Ardennes, or after Romania switched sides, etc, hasn’t got anything to do with the oil crisis. Oil may have been the reason they didn’t win, but it wasn’t the reason they kept on fighting when all hope was lost. The lack of oil means they’ll lose; them keeping fighting until the end has nothing to do with the lack of oil - it’s a separate issue.

But just a final point before we end the video. Musk says that - “In Leon Goldensohn’s book you can read many interesting stories and accounts of German generals that haven’t really done a good job - I know you might believe the Nuremberg defendents are not the best source, however these stories have nothing to do with their trial or their aquittal, many of them praise Hitler’s military planning and strategic skills on and on, this is definetely not good to get them aquitted, therefore I think most of the time they actually shared their legitimate thoughts and stories, at least the ones that have nothing to do with their actual indictment counts, like some of the military stories. ” No, I disagree.

I’ve already shown you some examples of Göring not telling the truth, and I’m confident I could do the same with the others. But even besides that, you have to remember that what’s written in Goldensohn’s book, is Goldensohn’s records of what these people said - not what these people said themselves. Yes, he took notes of what they said, then wrote them up later, so they’re fairly accurate.

But can we really be sure that they’re precisely what they said? The general gist of what they said: yes. But word-for-word?

Probably not. So not only are they twisting the truth to make themselves look good for future generations, but they’re also being presented from Goldensohn’s point of view. So at the very least, this is two levels of distortion here.

Now that’s not to say that this source should be dismissed. No, it’s a good source of information, and we should definitely use it. But what I want to get across to you all is that, when you pick up any source, you have to ask: who wrote it?

Why did they write it? Who did they write it for? When did they write it?

What impact does this have? What are they trying to get across? And for the people who are being interviewed, in this case, then more questions need to be asked: Are they going to admit their own mistakes?

What incentive do they have to tell the truth? What incentive do they have to bend the truth? What do other primary and secondary sources say?

Is there a convergence of evidence, or does their account differ from others? Just because some of the stuff they’re talking about isn’t related to their trails, doesn’t mean that what they’re telling you is the truth. If nothing else, they said this stuff a year or more after the war was over.

They’ve had time to come up with their excuses and spin and come up with their own narrative. They’ve got no incentive to admit they’re wrong. They’ve got the perfect opportunity to pin the blame on people who are no longer alive - Hitler being the primary target here, but others too.

So Musk seems convinced that what was said in this book was truthful. I’d urge against that. Some of it is truthful, but there’s a lot of lies in here as well.

Assumption: we can believe everything that’s being said. Question: ‘But is this really the case? ’ Answer: no, especially after we’ve spotted a few instances where Göring wasn’t telling us the truth.

So just be careful when it comes to reading primary sources, especially memoirs or other text like this written after the fact, but also secondary sources too. You really want what’s known as a “convergence of evidence” in order to ensure what’s being said is probably truthful. Hope that answers your question.

Thanks for watching guys, bye for now.