I am not sure I agree with this, with or without Churchill German could not defeat Britain primarily because it could not get to Britain.
The deficiencies in the Kriegsmarine in terms of size and the Luftwaffes lack of a strategic bomber and a fighter that could protect it meant that air superiority over southern England was extremely unlikely which meant that the Royal Navy was always going to be the decider therefore Churchill could spout on about anything he liked knowing that Britain was perfectly safe, essentially Britain could have been lead by a sock puppet for all the difference it would have made.
Thats not a military and tactical question here. Britain can have air and marine supremacy all they want, but they were surrounded and had no allies and would have been defeated by a serious attack by nazy germany, however nazy germany proably thought, it was not worth the cost in men and resources to take a rather smal country in comparission to the much more important easfront and the actual reasion to even start world war 2. Occuppying britain wasn't the plan and just weakens their military that they could have spent at the east front.
After Dunkirk, GB's morale to continue the war with germany was non existent. A chamberlain figure would opted for a peace treaty quite quickly and hitler offered good conditions to GB, too.(in comparssion to the other counries he invaded)
Just Churchill denied it all and put a lot of pressure on Germany, by strictly continueing the war. I read so much about Churchill. Believe it or not, without him proably Hitler would have totally won his war. Germany wasn't totally outnumbered outproduced and outclassed at the begining of wwII, it actually was the country that outclassed all other ones including U.S. and USSR, both big nations weren't prepared for a war when it started, also german submarines layed wate to british navy and later U.S. navy until they got the technology to spot the submarines and decode enigma.(2 technologies were required!) There was a technology war too.
Churchill hold out, and got U.S. in. It took the groundforces of the USSR, the supplies and economy of U.S. and the Air and Navy as well as intelligence supremacy of GB and U.S. to take down hitlers regime. Just look what price the world payed to take down Germany. That wasn't to compare with some war in the gulf, heh.
Also did you read all the details about the "Luftschlacht um England"? Eventually the Luftwaffe would have succeeded against the RAF, if they would have continued to bomb their airfields - they started with this at the beginning of that battle - and RAF could not recover from these attacks if they finished their businesses there. But instead both germany and GB bombarded their respective Capitols London and Berlin, what merely was a big waste of time, for Hitler and ended the air battle.
An then he thought, he ignores GB and deals with the USSR, could have worked with a Chamberlain in charge who proably wouldn't have that kind of relationship to roosevelt and U.S. as Churchill had and might be non-agressive not using commandos and bombers to lay waste to german supplies and weaken their effort on the east front in an economic way in additon all those TONS of supply for the USSR to recover on the eastfront and strike back in stalingrad with operation uranos. Just remember why did germany run out of supplies? It wasn't just cause USSR was bigger, thats utter nonsense. USSR got heavenly supplied while germany got cut of their supplies and it was a GB/U.S. effort.
I really think without Churchill nothing of this would have happened, at that time period, i don't think anyone would have been so brave to try to fight nazi germany when all your allies were quickly removed in the war. Look, Churchill even ordered the GB Navy to attack a large french fleet.......the guy was brave and mad and had sometimes luck, too. Without an agressesive GB leader as Churchill, GB could have been either isolated in that war or be hitlers ally even. Just look at King Edward VIII. And just look at those Britains who only care about the empire ant not nazi germany, Churchill while brave risked everything...it all could have ended in a catastrophe, too, like Hitler deciding to take GB no matter the cost before invading USSR. However he made the same mistake as Napoleon in underestimating GB, that land can recover quickly and put up a fight.
Lucky for Churchill, that Hitler never wanted to go to GB, but invade the asap USSR, that was his plan since the 20ies and chamberlain made GB appear weak so he understemiated it, like stalin who appeared weak in the USSR prior to the war, cause he was unpopular for that industrialization that cost them 10 million lifes and a red army that failed in Finnland.
Another problem of people discussiong WW2 is, they think USSR and US were superpowers to begin with. But they were ill prepared when the war started. Actually weakened, too. the 30ies weren't good for U.S. either and that starving of USSR citizens, cause of stalins rule.
Underestimating 2 persons did cost Hitler the war. It wasn't the countries. Would be there any resistence in GB without Churchill in charge? doubt it, if they lose their french ally and after dunkirk. But they may started out confident, but all hope was lost after dunkirk and the occupation of france and most of europe by germany.(for most leaders in the world at least, but not churchill)
USSR without Stalin? Would be there much resistence? Would they have even so many t30 tanks? Or would they be just pawns and farming? Stalin was cruel and brutal, but he transformed the USSR into a superpower by industralizising it, in a cruel and quick way probably no other leader would.
While Hitler was important to start WWII, both Stalin and Churchill were as important to end it. And without Churchill-Rosevellt who shared technology too and intelligence to the ill prepared U.S. at the start of the war would have been annhiliated by the sea wolves submarines, U.S. navy lacked the technology to see the german submarines and got it from the britains. The only reasion why germany declared war to the us, was cause of Japan and germans sumbarines ability to lay waste to the U.S. east coast in the operation "Paukenschlag".
However without Churchill no U.S. in Europe they would have dealt only with japan in the pacific. No, U.S. no most important U.S. supplies for Stalin, no Stalingrad/operation uranus, no hope for USSR. Germany superpower in no time and proably soon nuclear weapons with ICBM technology, they got important rocketscience experts. And from that point, GB and U.S. can't do a single thing against the Nazis.
I sometimes wonder if people actually know how close this war was? But i know, all the polticial, economocial and certainly tactical details aren't explained in a few books or school. you need to study that complex war for a while.
There are some very good british historicans out there. But Richard Overy is by far the best one. People will learn how close that war was and everything was possible at the early stages of the war. And he explains it very detailed with all aspects possible especially economical and tactical ones.
