Every participant was essential. However, the fact is that whether there would have been a victory without America is questionable, since that implies peace between Britain and Germany as they stalemate across the Channel. That could be a "victory" of sorts for Britain, they remain independent (and probably don't get Blitzed either). USSR survival is a toss-up. It certainly isn't a victory for any allies already overrun by Hitler. If Pearl Harbor still happens, America crushes Japan and then goes back to sitting on the sidelines of whatever is happening in Europe. America did pull Europe's *** out of the fire twice; that doesn't mean we won the whole thing by ourselves. It means the outcome would have been significantly less favorable without us, at best. The other side of the coin is that America couldn't have
Had Hitler not attacked Russia, and offered Britain an armistice it is highly unlikely that Britain, the U.S., and Canada could have pulled off D-Day, even had America still been interested in joining the war, or more accurately, the invasion itself could ahve been managed, but making and holding onto gains would ahve put the end result in doubt.
Had Hitler waited until he had an armistice with Britain in hand and then attacked the USSR... that's kind of a tossup. Finding the men and materiel to conquer the vastness of the Soviet Union looks like an insurmountable challenge, but by the same token it's questionable if lend-lease would have been available to the Soviets, and how it would have gotten there if Britain were no longer in the war. I tend to think Hitler's meddling would have crippled his offensive, but extra men and materiel might have meant certain key battles went differently. Alternate history is always a tricky matter, and never free from the bias of the author.
Another key point is whether Japan attacks Pearl Harbor or not, and depending on that, what the situation is with respect to the USSR and Britain and Germany. If the U.S. can concentrate its full power in the Pacific, Japan goes down a lot faster. Part of the reason Americans think we won the war all by ourselves is that it's true in regard to the Pacific. In Europe, it was 3 major players (USA, USSR, Britain) 1 medium player (Canada) and a number of other small and tiny players. In the Pacific it was the U.S. and then everyone else; even China tying down huge numbers of Japanese troops was largely irrelevant since that did nothing to address the inability of Japan to keep up with the U.S. in terms of naval strength; we could simply pump out more airplanes, aircraft carriers, and escorts than they could even dream of, and since the relevant areas were all islands, more troops would have been of miniscule help. They might have made some invasions harder, but they also might have made them easier by running through food supplies more quickly and inducing starvation earlier.
As to the atomic bomb, Germany was a lot more than a few weeks from a test:
More like yearsQuote:
The joint American, British, and Canadian Manhattan Project developed the uranium and plutonium atomic bombs, which helped bring an end to hostilities with Japan during World War II. Its success is attributable to meeting all four of the following conditions:[94]
A strong initial drive, by a small group of scientists, to launch the project.
Unconditional government support from a certain point in time.
Essentially unlimited manpower and industrial resources.
A concentration of brilliant scientists devoted to the project.
Even with all four of these conditions in place the Manhattan Project succeeded only after the war in Europe had been brought to a conclusion. Mutual distrust existed between the German government and the scientists.[citation needed]
For the Manhattan Project, the second condition was met on 9 October 1941 or shortly thereafter. Significant here is that by the end of 1941 it was already apparent that the German nuclear energy project would not make a decisive contribution to ending the German war effort in the near term, and control of the project was relinquished by the Heereswaffenamt (HWA, Army Ordnance Office) to the Reichsforschungsrat (RFR, Reich Research Council) in July 1942.
Concerning condition three, the needs in materiel and manpower for a large-scale project necessary for the separation of isotopes for a uranium-based bomb and heavy water production for reactors for a plutonium-based bomb may have been possible in the early years of the war.[citation needed]
As to condition four, the high priority allocated to the Manhattan Project allowed for the recruitment and concentration of capable scientists on the project. In Germany, on the other hand, a great many young scientists and technicians who would have been of great use to such a project were conscripted into the German armed forces, while others had fled the country before the war due to antisemitism and political persecution.[95]
Germany fell short of what was required to make an atomic bomb.[96][97][98][99]
[edit] Recent developments
A book by Rainer Karlsch, Hitlers Bombe, published in 2005, alleged that Diebner's team conducted the first successful nuclear weapon test of some type (employing hollow charges for ignition) of nuclear related device in Ohrdruf, Thuringia on 4 March 1945.[100] However, Karlsch has been criticized for displaying "a catastrophic lack of understanding of physics" by physicist Michael Schaaf, who is himself the author of an earlier book about Nazi atomic research, while Karlsch himself has acknowledged that he lacked absolute proof for the claims made in his book.[101]
A similar project was described in David Irving's 1967 book The Virus House, where it was claimed that some of Diebner's researchers had unsuccessfully attempted to produce fusion using conventional explosives and heavy paraffin as a deuterium carrier. Irving also describes a further experiment in 1943 carried out by Trinks and Sachsse, which used a hollow sphere of silver filled with deuterium, imploded by conventional explosives. Again it was unsuccessful, no trace of radioactivity being produced.[102]
Science historian Mark Walker also published his analysis in 2005.,[103] and in 2005 Karlsch and Walker published an article on the controversial historical evidence, briefly referenced in the article.[104] The Physikalisch-Technische Bundesanstalt (PTB, Federal Physical and Technical Institute) tested soil samples in the area of the alleged test, and in 2006 it issued its results: keinen Befund (nothing found).[105] Karlsch published a follow-on book with Heinko Petermann to elaborate on issues raised in his first book.[106]
Even had Germany been able to produce an atomic bomb, one wonders how they would have deployed it that late in the war. They did not have an aircraft that could lift what the B-29 could, nor its range, nor its altitude; their only real hope would be to use it as a super landmine in the path of some Russian division or other.
On the other hand, the U.S. was already working on the B-36 which could reach Berlin from North America. Germany could have been atom bombed from the other side of the Atlantic. However, that rather brings up the issue of atom bomb production rates and whether Germany is able to deploy improved jet fighters in time or not; the Me-262 could not climb high enough to engage the B-36.
Again, alternate history is a lot of guesswork; it is far from free of bias, and often deteriorates into simple wanktardism. Without America, Britain would ahve survived, and Russia had a good chance of surviving, but America was responsible for defeating Japan, and the results against Hitler would have been a lot less favorable without us. Even if Russia eventually overran Berlin by itself, its losses would have been staggeringly higher.
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