Hitler’s end came in a bunker as the enemy forces closed in and the war drew to an end.
But in the days leading up to that grim finish, the Nazi madman still had big plans.
He wasn’t satisfied with possibly conquering all of Europe.
He wanted to take the war to the United States.
As large as the conflict was, the United States was relatively untouched on its homeland.
While it had suffered a devastating blow to its fleet at Pearl Harbor, the mainland had
been barely touched.
In fact, the United States was almost never invaded during a war - the last serious strike
on its territory had been during the War of 1812 when British forces invaded through their
territory in Canada.
And the only time they had seen large-scale conflict on their own soil since was during
the Civil War - when they fought themselves!
But the United States had dealt Hitler devastating blows in Europe - and he was determined to
make them pay.
But it wasn’t always that way.
In the early years of the Nazi assault on Europe, Hitler had other plans - keeping the
United States at a distance.
It hadn’t been long since the First World War, and there was no hunger in the US for
another European conflict.
When the Nazis took over, they actually had a significant amount of support in the United
States.
Groups like Friends of the New Germany and the German-American Bund played on a combination
of isolationism and anti-semitism to paint the Nazis as ideal friends of America.
And then Hitler invaded Poland and that largely went out the window.
A new group, America First, emerged and portrayed the war in Europe as none of America’s business.
Of course, that didn’t last once Pearl Harbor got bombed.
While Hitler did like certain elements of American culture, like westerns, he viewed
the larger society with contempt.
He even claimed that Jewish people and Black people had ruined its culture - which must
have been a surprise to anyone from those two groups in the 1940s.
And immediately after Germany declared war on the United States, Hitler set out to sabotage
their war effort.
It would come to be known as Operation Pastorius, and eight German nationals in the United States
were recruited and trained in how to target American infrastructure including energy plants,
railroads, and bridges.
The goal was to create chaos through a terror campaign.
But Hitler was undone by one thing - employee dissatisfaction.
One of the men, George Dasch, wasn’t a fan of the Nazi regime and tipped off the FBI.
Dasch and his accomplice Ernst Burger tried to defect to the United States - but were
instead arrested and J. Edgar Hoover took credit for busting the spy ring.
The entire group was sentenced to death, but Dasch and one of the others had their sentences
commuted.
The first Nazi attack on America had failed miserably and the German army was occupied
on the home front - more than one since Hitler had decided to attack Russia.
But as the war went on, Hitler became overconfident - and his eyes turned towards the US once
again.
And this time, he wanted to handle things more directly.
The first plan was to hit the United States from afar.
Hitler was fascinated by the idea of New York City in flames and hoped to pull off an equivalent
attack like Pearl Harbor on the east coast.
There were just a few problems with that - namely, it was a very long way over and the Atlantic
ocean was now full of warships.
Pearl Harbor succeeded because it was a sneak attack, but any German warplanes would have
been shot down long before they could reach their targets.
He moved on to trying to develop long-range missiles that could hit the US homeland, but
the German rocketry experts had many projects and the war was moving too fast for this to
be a serious threat.
But he wasn’t done planning - and the source of his next plan came from long before his
regime.
Hitler wasn’t the first German leader to plot to attack the United States, although
the last time it happened was more of a thought exercise.
The Imperial German government in the last days of the 19th century controlled large
swaths of Europe - and they had their thoughts much further.
From 1897 to 1903, the military developed a plan to target the United States’ military
infrastructure and attack their bases on Hampton roads near Washington DC.
They sent spies to New York and Boston to spy on possible targets, with the intention
of forcing the US to pull back to defend its homeland and give up on many of its colonial
holdings.
But the Imperial German Army was never big enough to challenge the US and the plans were
put in a drawer.
At least, until World War I.
As the United States grew closer to getting involved in the First World War, Germany explored
another option for targeting the US homeland - through its southern border.
The German government approached Mexico and proposed an alliance if the US entered the
war.
They promised to return Texas, Arizona, and New Mexico to Mexico if they won the war,
but the telegram was intercepted.
An outraged United States government soon declared war on Germany, and the alliance
never came to be.
Hitler learned from these mistakes - and was ready to make his own.
The biggest advantage Hitler had over the previous German governments was an ally.
Imperial Japan had a powerful military of its own and was keeping the United States
fighting hard on multiple fronts.
They had pulled off a sneak attack and many residents of Hawaii were worried about a full-fledged
invasion.
But could they reach further - to the mainland?
Many of Hitler’s plans counted on this, hoping for a two-pronged attack on the United
States that would force the country to surrender.
But at the time, any mad scribblings of invasion plans he had weren’t making their way to
American eyes.
So how did Americans know about them?
Anxiety was high in 1942, with the war having just begun and Americans worried about the
draft and future attacks like Pearl Harbor.
So naturally, Life Magazine decided the best thing they could do was terrify everyone even
more!
Hey, panic sells.
They published an article talking about how the Axis powers could invade the United States,
complete with frightening visuals.
The images spread like wildfire, with many people wondering if these were actual images
of plans Hitler had for hitting the homeland.
The answer was no - probably.
But that didn’t mean they weren’t frighteningly plausible.
The first plan was based around a joint German-Japanese sneak attack.
First, the Japanese forces would cross the Pacific from the north, coming in through
Alaska and stealthily moving down the coast towards the major cities of California.
At the same time, German submarines and warships would cross the Atlantic and attack major
east-coast cities - both population centers like New York and military bases like Norfolk.
But the plan had a few major issues.
For one thing, it relied heavily on saboteurs.
The plan involved a fifth column helping to conceal the invaders and sabotaging the infrastructure,
and that failed miserably when Hitler tried.
Not only were most German and Japanese Americans deeply loyal to the United States, but most
of the Japanese-Americans had been imprisoned by their own government.
It would have been a spectacular attack - but had way too many moving parts to succeed.
Another plan focusing on the Germans saw them heading south, using their territory in north
Africa to avoid the hazardous Atlantic Ocean.
They would travel to Dakar and then bypass the major naval battles and sail to the eastern
tip of South America.
Hugging the coast and traveling to the Caribbean, they would then sneak up to the key port of
New Orleans and attack, dealing a major blow to the US fleet.
More importantly, this would give them access to the Mississippi River - which would give
them access to countless key points in the US mainland.
Would this plan work?
It certainly has a bigger chance of success than the first, because much of it centers
around avoiding conflict.
The chance of them surprising the United States is higher, but the disadvantage is that it
brings them nowhere near most of the largest US cities.
It would cause chaos in the United States, but it would be unlikely to topple the country
unless its defenses were on low alert and concentrating on the war abroad.
Other plans had even bigger challenges.
The heart of the US Atlantic fleet was in Norfolk, Virginia, and the Germans hoped to
cut it out in a similar blow to the way the Japanese hit Pearl Harbor.
But the Americans knew that was a possibility, and it was one of the most protected US bases
at the time.
The magazine speculated that the Germans could fool them by splitting their fleet and sending
them through the Azores, Madeira, and Cape Verde.
They would then rendezvous in the Atlantic and form a massive attack front that would
charge Norfolk and break the US defense line with overwhelming force.
It was scary on paper - but in reality, might have been a different story.
It’s always hard to defeat an enemy on their own turf, and this was the plan with the highest
odds that the German forces would be spotted and blown out of the water.
It relies on overwhelming force, but the US Navy at the time was keeping pace with the
Germans.
The odds are that this would have been a brutal and bloody battle with the US taking many
losses - but the Germans ultimately turning tail and running.
Finally, one more plan called back to the most dangerous invasion of the United States.
The United States was expecting an attack - but its northern neighbor may not have been.
Canada actually entered the war before the United States, but its massive geography and
cold northern climate meant it was unlikely to be attacked directly.
This plan took advantage of that, starting the attack by taking the small nation of Iceland
and moving on to the massive frozen territory of Greenland.
That would give the Nazis the position they needed to infiltrate Canada, moving south
and invading the United States through St. Lawrence and Hudson valleys.
The main problem with this plan?
Dress warmly.
Germany was already learning a very harsh lesson at the time - don’t invade Russia
during the winter.
This attack plan would have taught it to them again.
While they wouldn’t have met the same level of opposition, they would have been on unfriendly
territory and struggled in the climate.
Because they would be traveling through a US ally, there is also a greater chance that
Canada would have tipped off the US in advance.
But if it succeeded, it would have brought them deep inside enemy territory.
So why didn’t any of these plans happen?
The main reason is...Hitler just wasn’t very good at war.
His early successes came amid an alliance with Russia and years to build up his military.
As the war expanded and he found himself on the defensive, he became increasingly paranoid
and found himself with fewer allies.
Even his generals eventually started plotting against him.
To attack the United States would have taken a major effort and a large portion of the
German military - something that he didn’t have while fighting a war on two fronts.
And there was one more major issue.
Hitler was notoriously paranoid and obsessive, and he couldn’t focus on the United States
when another enemy was much closer.
He expended much of Germany’s force on breaking the United Kingdom with brutal bombing raids,
but the island held out and never surrendered.
If he had won that fight, he might have turned his attention to the United States more aggressively
- but the war ended before he had that chance.
If Hitler did attack the United States, the distance and geography would have made him
a heavy underdog.
But instead, the path he chose only led to one place - a dark, cold bunker.
For more on the end of the Nazi era, check out “Did Hitler REALLY Escape to Argentina?”,
or watch “What Actually Happened to Nazi Leaders After World War 2?” for the fate
of his inner circle.