World War II, analyzed!

The title says it all, Germany only sent troops to North Africa to aid their Italian Allies. Mussolini wanted to conquer parts of North Africa, but did a very bad job, so Germany had to come to the rescue.

Do you think the war could've been different if the Germans didn't sent troops to Nort Africa?

Hm, these "what if..." scenarios are sometimes the start of heated discussions...

Anyway, to answer the question:

Honestly, I do not know, there are too much uncertain factors...
Would the Italians have been driven out of North Africa? Would Vichy-French troops have intervened? Were the British interested in occupying the whole of North Africa or just securing Egypt and the rest of the Middle east?
And for the later coarse of the war: would Hitler have interferred in the Balkan (would he have needed to?)? He would have had about 10 to 20 divisions more available for either the invasion of Britain or the USSR.

Kris

They only aided the Italians out of ideological brotherhood. IMHO, it was a mistake.

Hitler knew what he wanted. He had something resembling a plan, or at least an outline. That theater turned out to be nothing more than a drain of resources and damned good men. Had that Korps been available for the start of Barbarossa, the first few months of that debacle could well have gone differently.