The heroisism of Max Schmeling

I'm guessing, but Schmeling probably didn't care how he was portrayed. Owning several hundred million dollars makes one very thick skinned.

 

Very true.

 

I stumbled upon some direct Owens quotes some time ago, I might be able to find it again. If I remember correctly he was highly impressed with his German (Nazi) encounters while he was there and commented something along the lines that he was treated there better than at home.

 

You were definitely correct about Henry Ford and Charles Lindbergh being Nazi sympathizers.
You can also add King Edward VIII and Joseph Kennedy Sr (JFK's father) to the list.

 

He may indeed have been treated better than at home , but we are talking about 1936.
The full horror was yet to come.

 

True

They turned the dial to the max after Poland.

That time period is very muddled and history is always written by the winner.

Contrary to popular believe England/France declared war on Germany not the other way around when they invaded Poland but when the Russkies did the same thing a few weeks later they became "Allies "

It stands to reason that if the Western Powers would have stayed out , Hitler would have left France, Belgium, England , North Africa and the Balkans (temporarely?) alone and focused exclusively on the East and IMO one on one with zero Allied material/intelligence/logistic support he would have blitzed the Russians. That in turn with the Russian oil/minerals/agricultural resources would have established Hitler as a genuine super power with most likely nobody challenging him.

Fortunately that did not pan out.

 

Hitler's problem fighting Russia was his lack of a long range bomber.
Add to that, Hitler had a drug addict commanding the Luftwaffe. An air force was critical in a war with the USSR.

 

Hitlers problem fighting Russia, was that it was full of a lot of Russians, who didn't want him to do it.

Air power doesn't win major wars, even today.

 

Any good Schmeling books?

 

Wrong

It took him less than six months to be on the gates of Moskow......fighting on three major some even say four fronts it took the Russians FOUR years to get to Berlin...IMO, one on one Germans vs Russians with no Allied support whatsoever Russia caves. Plus with no Allied civilian /factory bombings, a one front war, high moral, unlimited no restriction advance weapon design combined with major slave labor they would have a nuke no later than 1945....and then it would have been game over.

 

That's what you hear on TV, but it isn't true.
Had Hitler not squandered his air power in the Battle of Britain, it would have been a totally different war.
There would have been no D-Day. He could have warded off any Allied invasion of the European Continent.
He could have supplied his armies on the Eastern Front.
He could have eliminated Stalin's Siberian Divisions with long range bombers.

 

Air power achieved nine tenths of f*** all in the two gulf wars.

I doubt that it was going to do any better, in World War II!