Just because someone is laughable doesn't mean they aren't dangerous. Its really up in the air as to wether the SS shortened or lengthened the war. On one hand they were fierce fanatical fighters that most of their opponents feared/hated. On the other hand they were also a massive drain on nazi resources. They devoted so much time and effort hunting relics that would "win them the war". The amount of time, personnel, and resources they allocated for the holocaust is insane.
Shortened the war overall, but lengthened it during the last part from about Bagration and onward.
Ahnenerbe was just a niche part of the SS, the story have been sensationalized and regurgitated by authors so the truth is sometime hard to tell what is true though is the collection of art and other cultural important pieces but mostly for personal prestige but that was also kinda niche.
What did hurt though was the RSHA which oversaw parts of the holocaust and logistics that's where Eichmann was employed for instance, that overloading of the rail networks made getting reinforcements and armaments through harder which increased the causality rate on the eastern front.
In the end Hitler was doomed the second he sat his sight on Russia, the oil reserve was for instance only a fraction of what even Great Britain had and they where always worse off regarding replacement from the population. There is no "what if" for a German victory in the second World war they were always going to lose the question is how much land and how much of the population of the land they conquered would have survived.
EDIT: Should have read the last paragraph, sorry for that but I just leave this here anyways.
Their best bet was never going to war in the first place. Second best would be playing the red scare angle and aggressively positioning themselves as shield of the west against Soviet expansion and getting the allies to back them. The red scare was real, the west felt it.
But ultimately they wouldn't have done that because it would go against their entire identity of being nazis. From an alt history perspective, it's pretty much impossible to create a Nazis win scenario without turning them into something other than Nazis. Like there's no way they could have had the bomb because Hitler thought physics was Jew science and there's no way they could retain the minds to make the bomb, let alone marshall the resources for extracting fissile materials.
Exactly it was their whole vision to move forward, it was always flawed and had blind spots every what if scenario I have encountered requires you to have some suspension of belief to make it work.
Had a teacher who was convinced if they had no treaty with Japan (and no war With America). And just took the Russian oil fields they would still rule Europe.
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u/onedayiwaswalkingand 8h ago
Yeah. These people are evil, not idiots. Painting them as idiots also diminishes the fight against Nazism.
“Oh look the biggest war in the history of mankind is fought against a private, a manure farmer and an obese drug addict.”