Were the Germans closer to winning WW1 or WW2

[OSR stands with Israel]

I would say WW1 as there was practically no way the Soviets were gonna surrender to the Germans in WW2 since surrender was the same as death in that war while in WW1 the Germans probably win the War if they win the Battle of Marne in 1914 or if the Spring Offensive Succeeded .

[RINO Tom]

Define “win,” but I would say World War I.  The Germans were damn close to Paris.

[TheReckoning]

The Central Powers had a significant chance of winning WW1, but the Axis had a 0% chance of defeating the Allies as we currently think of WW2 (I.e Soviets + British Empire + USA vs. Italy + Germany + Japan). The Axis simply could not win if they wanted to take on the titans of the USA, British Empire, and Soviet Union- fundamental differences of the conflict must be achieved for Germany to win (such as the Soviet Union deciding to join the Axis or something.)

[Buffalo Mayor Young Kim]

Germany winning WW1 only takes a few changes (slower Russian mobilization, a few key early operation go a little differently, social unrest/mutant cracks France first)
Germany Winning WW2 requires magic.

[Sir Mohamed]

Didn't they come relatively close to the first atomic bomb around 1944? That would have been a gamechanger. And thankfully Hitler never got the button on his desk.

[Skill and Chance]

Didn't they come relatively close to the first atomic bomb around 1944? That would have been a gamechanger. And thankfully Hitler never got the button on his desk.

WWI had several different points at which a Central Powers victory was plausible.  Due to how long the US stayed out and the collapse in Russia, population and industrial capacity was reasonably balanced for most of the war.

There was huge, huge imbalance in WWII.  The only plausible Axis victory would involve improbably getting the atomic bomb 1st.  And even then I think it just turns into a Cold War between the US and Nazi Germany instead of the Soviet Union after Hitler nukes London and Moscow.  By the time it became viable to fly or launch them all the way across the Atlantic, we would have caught up to Germany and would have them as well.  Also, in this scenario, we would probably focus everything on taking down Imperial Japan before they can get nukes from Germany and still win outright in the Pacific.

[OSR stands with Israel]

Didn't they come relatively close to the first atomic bomb around 1944? That would have been a gamechanger. And thankfully Hitler never got the button on his desk.

No I think that is a myth :

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/German_nuclear_weapons_program

The scholarly consensus is that it failed to achieve these goals, and that despite fears at the time, the Germans had never been close to producing nuclear weapons.

[dead0man]

they were a roll of the dice away from winning the first one, they had almost no chance to win the second.  There is nothing they could have done to won, it would have taken the other powers failing for them to win (ie, UK going soft, the Soviets being 15% more dysfunctional than they were in reality, the West and the Soviets refusing to play nice with each other).

[NYDem]

Didn't they come relatively close to the first atomic bomb around 1944? That would have been a gamechanger. And thankfully Hitler never got the button on his desk.

At the rate the Germans were going they probably wouldn't have produced a working bomb until the 1950s. Their nuclear program was inefficient, underfunded, and poorly organized. Not comparable to the Manhattan Project.

I'd say Germany certainly had a better shot at WWI than WWII. WWII was nearly unwinnable for the Axis.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

I would say WW1 as there was practically no way the Soviets were gonna surrender to the Germans in WW2 since surrender was the same as death in that war while in WW1 the Germans probably win the War if they win the Battle of Marne in 1914 or if the Spring Offensive Succeeded .

No, the Ludendorff Offensive could not have succeeded: it was a final, desperate, delusional act by a collapsing de facto military dictatorship that actually brought foward the final, inevitable, collapse.

But the war could have been won in 1914. Initial attack into France a close-run thing - but, in the end, an all-or-nothing gamble.

As far as the Second World War goes, that would entail the NS leadership understanding the concept of 'quitting while you're ahead', but that was never happening.

[they don't love you like i love you]

I suppose WWI although that's like saying a baseball team was closer to winning a game they lost 2-8 than one they lost 0-9.

[Statilius the Epicurean]

A negotiated peace in 1917 was highly possible, and one that Germany could call a win wasn't out of the question.

[Middle-aged Europe]

But the war could have been won in 1914. Initial attack into France a close-run thing - but, in the end, an all-or-nothing gamble.

As far as the Second World War goes, that would entail the NS leadership understanding the concept of 'quitting while you're ahead', but that was never happening.

Moreso than in WWI, the Nazis were bound to an all-or-nothing mentality, leading to "(total) victory" or "death" being the only two acceptable outcomes. Total destruction of Germany as an end result of the war was in fact deemed preferable to some ceasefire compromise, because from Hitler's point of view Germany was unworthy of survival if it proved to be incapable of defeating the allies. These inherently self-destructive tendencies of the Nazis were noted at least as early as the 1950s in the works of Hannah Arendt and others, amounting to WWII being a form of suicide by cop foreign soldiers more than anything.

The Nazi system and by extension the war itself was a desperate, last-ditch attempt to turn back the world's clock to simpler, more primitive, and more "natural" times... and if that attempt turned out to be a failure they didn't want to live in that kind of "civilized" world anymore (ironically, the Nazis were also obsessed by modern technology as a means to achieve that end, not being aware of the constradiction that a civilized society was a requirement for the development of such technology in the long run... in a way, with all their belief in Wunderwaffen they had been living off the intellectual scraps of the preceding republic)  

In that sense I agree with the assessment that WWI was more "winnable".

[Meclazine for Israel]

Without the Russian invasion, they could have kept a lot more of Europe and then claimed a win.

My girlfriend said that regardless, a Nazi fascist ideology would not have persisted.

[Georg Ebner]

Despite v.MOLTKE had reduced (because of Russia and WILLIAM II's bad nerves) the northern troops against France the revolvingDoor-effect of the v.SCHLIEFFEN-plan nonetheless nearly succeeded due to the French idiocy of invading in Alsace and Baden.
v.MANSTEIN made basically the same, just riskier and still more successful.
Nevertheless Germany had in WWII never a chance.

Interestingly even historians dedicated to HistMat do usually not refer to this basic fact: In 1914 Germany was producing as much steel as the rest of Europe (and the USA as much as the rest of the world). 25 years later the relation was far less favourable.