Why did the German army did not invade England?

Answer 1

In WW1 it was never an option: In WW2 the Battle of Britain prevented the Luftwaffe having any form of air superiority over an invasion beach & crossing the Channel was never possible in reality. ______________________________________________________ I agree with my most august WikiAnswers colleague that in WW1 invasion was not possible, as the German Army never came near the Channel. The alternate route across the North Sea (the same one taken by the Germanic ancestors of England) was also impossible because the German High Seas Fleet was unable to deal the British Home Fleet a killing blow, and after the Battle of Jutland they stopped trying. However, I believe that a cross-Channel invasion was possible for a brief time after the fall of France. In case the British Isles had fallen, by no means would the British have given up the fight. Plans were arranged for the British government to rule in exile in Canada, and RAF Bomber Command would have operated from Canadian airfields, flying the Convair B-36 Peacemaker to bomb Germany. After Great Britain was considered safe from invasion, the B-36 was put on the shelf, but it flew after the war as the backbone of USAF Strategic Air Command for ten years. For thirty years I have studied WW2, and in particular the decisions made by Adolf Hitler, many of which flew in the face of military good sense. The conclusion I reached is complicated and difficult to explain, but I will try. 1) After Germany was put on the defensive in 1942, Hitler became most callous about the lives of his soldiers, forbidding any kind of retreat, but earlier when Germany was on the offensive he was sparing of German blood. His annexations of Austria and Czechslovakia before the war had been bloodless. Even the fight put up by Norway had not appalled Hitler with German losses. He seems to have wanted short campaigns with big rewards and low German casualties. An invasion of the British Isles would have been very costly, but so were Luftwaffe losses in the Battle of Britain, and the German submarine losses in their attempt to starve England. 2) Hermann Goering knew that Hitler favored those who told him what he wanted to hear, and he promised to wipe out the British Expeditionary Force at Dunkirk, thus sparing German soldiers. It would not be the last time that he would make a promise which the Luftwaffe was unable to keep. Goering also promised that no bombs would fall on Germany, and that Stalingrad would be supplied by air. Yet, Hitler trusted him almost to the end of his life. Just before killing himself, Hitler threw Goering out of the Nazi party, not for incompetence, but for surrendering himself to the Allies. Even after botching the chance to destroy the BEF at Dunkirk, Hitler gave Goering the chance to subdue England from the air. 3) When the Home Guard mobilized to defend England, they were sadly lacking in modern equipment, much like the US Army in the 1930's, and many trained with broomsticks for lack of rifles. They laid mines, barbed wire, and anti-tank obstacles. In addition to the escaped BEF, the German invaders would be fighting thousands of civil defenders. Nazi Germany had already shown no fear of countries with strong fortifications, and no respect for those which were neutral, but Hitler attempted no invasions of Sweden and Switzerland, where civil defense was taken seriously. 4) Since reading this question I began to think of what I would have done if I had been Hitler (and TG I was not). I believe an invasion could have been accomplished with forces available to Germany in 1940 with a good chance of success. My plan was complicated, and I will keep the details to myself unless asked, but it still would have been a very costly affair. Therein I think was Hitler's flaw as a dictator. He was too ruthless on the defensive, and not ruthless enough on the offensive. 5) Winston Churchill evidently took a German invasion seriously when he made his "Finest Hour" speech to the British people, and I believe rightly so. As the planned invasion never took place, Jerry was indeed stopped by the English Channel and the skill of RAF Fighter Command. By 1941 Hitler decided to move on to another of his easy victories. This time, the size of the invaded country, the harshness of its winter, and the effectiveness of its army were badly underestimated.