WATCH: What if Hitler had captured Malta? Our WWII history reimagined by American politician

Did you ever wonder what would have become of Malta if our islands were captured by the Germans? I hadn't, until I came across this... Newt Gingrich, an American politician and 50th Speaker of the United States House of Representatives, speaks about this possibility in his history series, What If?

Newt delves into the impressive history of Malta as a fortress in the middle of the Mediterranean, explaining that our rock was “a very key point in which the British in WWII were able to sustain enough power that the Germans and Italians could never quite seal off the Mediterranean.”

Credit: Newt Gingrich / Facebook

With Malta being smack in the middle of the Med, there was a continual fight to get control of the islands. The British managed to sustain its defence, eventually warding off the German and Italian troops. However, a lot of things that could have easily changed the course of history.

In the series, Newt explains that in early 1941, “Hitler could have made the decision to use his paratroopers and land on Malta and capture the isle. It would have been easy to fly in the paratroopers from Sicily and overwhelm the defenders of Malta.” If they had seized Malta and had become a German and Italian fortification instead of a British fortification, two things would have happened immediately: the Mediterranean would have been cut off from Great Britain, cutting off their supply route, and German and Italian supply ships could be sent to Africa without any interference. According to Newt, it would then have been very likely that the Germans would have captured Cairo and the Suez Canal and moved on from there to capture Jerusalem and potentially to go after the oil supply in Iraq.

Credit: Newt Gingrich / Facebook

So, Malta would have been an enormously important centre. However, there were a few possible reasons as to why Hitler didn’t go through with such a task.

1. Hitler’s paratroopers had suffered tremendous casualties in Crete in 1940, so much so that even though the Germans won the battle, in many ways psychologically, the cost was so great that he never again wanted to risk that kind of exposure. He was afraid that we would destroy the paratrooper corps if they landed in Malta, and couldn’t be reinforced fast enough.

2. The Germans had no confidence in their Italian allies, and it is very likely that Hitler believed that any invasion that required help from the Italians was a very iffy proposition, and he simply wasn’t willing to risk it.

3. Hitler was already focused on leading the move to occupy Russia and moving all his forces to the east, and he didn’t want to be diverted more into the Mediterranean. Seems like he wasn’t bothered much about Malta anymore.

Credit: Newt Gingrich / Facebook

Arguably, this was a huge strategic mistake. “Had they gambled in taking Malta, it might have had a decisive impact on the war and a huge impact on whether or not the British could even have survived in Egypt. So, it’s one of the great ‘what if?’ questions well worth looking at and thinking about.” He’s right!

It’s crazy to think that our history could have been totally different. Would we have had a German lifestyle, had German as our second language instead of English, or possibly even been ruled by Hitler himself?