What if operation sealion succeeded

That rumour has never been properly substantiated, however. An unfortunate circumstance of many of the German occupations of the Second World War was the removal of cultural artefacts, art and literary works from museums, homes and other sites.

To Hitler, removing it would have created a visible and powerful reminder of his victory over the British Empire and his triumph where the great French Emperor had failed. Department III would also have been made responsible for emptying the National Gallery, the British Museum and the Ashmolean Museum, ostensibly for protection; in actual fact, such plundering would have amounted to little more than theft.

Art, literary works and other precious items from the great museums had already been moved, prior to the outbreak of war, to various country estates and even a quarry in Wales. No doubt they would have been moved further afield had the Germans successfully landed on British shores. More sinister plans would have been afoot in the Government Offices however. The Gestapo hoped to get British records from the Home Office on all foreigners in England including Irish nationalists, Moscow agents, German emigrants and political prisoners.

Gestapo officers would have visited the Foreign Office too, hoping to arrest the head of the Intelligence services.

While the immediate aim would have been to identify former friends and past enemies of Germany, the ultimate political aim, according to Longmate, would have been to gather evidence which would embarrass the recent British Government and its Allies. Most significantly, however, the Germans hoped to clarify Anglo-American relations with a view to exposing Roosevelt as interventionist. If there is one thing Germany was good at, it was propaganda, and the next stage would have been the closure of the Ministry of Information, press archives and the newspapers and editorial offices.

Once life returned to some semblance of normalcy, some of the newspapers would have been re-opened and distributed once again, albeit with strict censorship and the understanding they would be closed down if they did not adhere to German rules. It would have been the main instrument by which the British population would be forced to accept occupation, and every article, broadcast, and show would have served their purposes.

To take on the Soviet Union was no easy task. It boasted one of the largest armies and air forces in history, was the largest country in the world by landmass and boasted a leader equally as despotic as Hitler. The German Army needed supplies, men and equipment to combat the Bear while German industry needed materials and workers to supply that equipment.

What better way than to strip it from defeated nations, including Britain, which had a wealth of such materials? The German army was predominantly reliant on horses for much of its transportation, ironic considering how well regarded the Germans have become for the quality of their Armoured Divisions.

Defeated armies leave behind vast swathes of equipment, much of it useable and the Germans took full advantage of that. Even civilian vehicles could have ended up in military inventories, Longmate makes reference to cyclist battalions in the German Army, requisitioning civilian motor cars where possible. In addition to actual equipment, the British Armaments Factories would have been re-tooled for German production, be it tanks, aircraft, trucks or rifles.

The dockyards and ship building facilities would have proven useful for supporting further Kriegsmarine operations in the Atlantic.

Materials and industry were not the only resources available however; great minds such as Frank Whittle, who worked on the first British jet engine, or Barnes Wallis, the inventor of the famed bouncing bomb, would have been a more than inviting target and of incredible value to German Armaments companies like Messerschmitt and Krupp. Whittle had actually completed a working jet engine prototype by , and would later successfully flight-test the same in in an aircraft designed and built by Gloster.

Imagine if the Messerschmitt ME, the first operational jet fighter in the world, had come 2 years earlier than its historical debut in ! Fortunately, the above never came about. The Kriegsmarine, meanwhile, had taken disastrous losses during the invasion of Norway, with several light cruisers and destroyers sunk.

They barely had the strength to oppose the Royal Navy before the Norwegian operations, and could in no way support an invasion fleet at their current force level. Germany's military might was in its army; it was a land-based force that could not compete against the might of the Royal Navy.

For any invasion across the Channel to be successful, Hitler needed to not only control the skies but also the waves. Hitler would have had to significantly bolster and upgrade his navy the Kriegsmarine if any amphibious assault on Britain was to occur. Hitler also had no real drive to conquer and invade Britain. Ultimately, he just wanted Britain out of the war so he could focus his efforts eastwards. He never intended on fighting a two-front war, in fact, he always hoped Britain and Germany could be allies.

So after postponing Barbarossa, Hitler would be more likely to use the time to squeeze Britain further, tightening the noose and forcing them into a peace treaty.

To do that, Hitler would probably turn his attention to the Mediterranean and North Africa. Read more about: Hitler What if D-Day had failed? In our reality, Hitler didn't give the North African theatre the kind of attention and resources it required to secure a Nazi victory. However, in our altered timeline resources are now not going east, in fact, supplies are flooding in from that direction as agreed in the Nazi-Soviet nonaggression pact signed in With the Suez now under Nazi control, the British have lost a major logistical supply route and their position in the Middle East has been compromised.

With his economic and military might still in the west, Hitler then conducts successful invasions of Malta and Gibraltar putting further pressure on the British. The Brits are then either forced to the negotiating table or at the least hampered from making any efforts that might cause Hitler significant concerns in the west. With British capabilities now limited, Hitler perhaps provides assistance to Japan in South East Asia, aiding its ally's attempts to control the region.

If successful, and it is a big 'if' considering America still had interests in the area, it would leave Japan in a promising position to open up another front against the Soviets when Hitler decides to invade them.

He much preferred to do so without having to worry about fighting Britain at the same time — but when it became clear that the British were not going to seek terms, he dropped his invasion plans and concentrated on his real objectives in the east. People have been asking this question ever since the war. Dramatists have depicted every possible outcome of a German invasion, from the heroic resistance of the film Went the Day Well?

In reality, however, it is extremely unlikely that any invasion would have got much further than the beaches and their immediate surroundings.

When the Allies invaded Normandy in , they had almost total control of both the air and the sea — and yet they still struggled to break out of their beachheads. In , the Royal Military Academy at Sandhurst war-gamed Operation Sealion, and came to the same conclusion: while German troops might well have gained a small foothold on the coast, before long they would probably have been forced to surrender.

His latest book, Prisoners of History , is published on 9 July You can find him on Twitter KeithLoweAuthor. Sign in. Back to Main menu Virtual events Masterclasses. And why was it cancelled? What was Operation Sealion? At Dunkirk, British forces had retreated across the Channel. An invasion of Britain was the logical final step, says Keith Lowe. Hermann Goering famously boasted that his Luftwaffe planes could smash the RAF within just a few weeks.