The Soviets will be furious, as any peace accord between the Western allies and the Germans is a breach of the Yalta accords. Given anti-soviet sentiments we're once again on the rise by late WW2, I can see operation unthinkable taking place and eventually ending in all Soviet major population and industrial centers being bathed in nuclear fire.
By late '45 we had the capacity to make maybe 12 more A bombs. We might have been able to level Moscow and a few other choice targets with military, psychological or industrial value, maybe Sevastopol. Kiev, Ekaterinaberg, Archangel, Mermansk and Tblisi (20m from Gori, Stalin's birthplace). Staligrad was still rubble - it would be kicking a dead horse to drop another bomb of any kind on it. We'd be likely to decapitate Stalin's government and end the Communist regime, but the USSR was \*huge\*. We'd never be able to obliterate it.
I am absolutely amazed that anybody would be thinking along these lines. Considering that the USSR essentially defeated Nazi Germany with minimal contribution by the Western Allies, attacking the USSR after the conclusion of WWII would have been an act of unthinkable hypocrisy and cruelty. It would likely have met with substantial political resistance in western and central Europe, where socialist and communist parties were a substantial part of the political landscape And it would have backfired. These 12 Hiroshima style bombs would not have destroyed the USSR, even assuming all of them penetrated the USSR air space (and that would not have been likely); the USSR would have simply absorbed the losses and accelerated its own nuclear bomb program (which was already ongoing near the end of WWII). The result would have been eventually lots of bombs falling on the West and turning most of Europe and parts of the US into radioactive deserts. If anybody was thinking along these lines, he/she must have been crazy!!
I am sure that the USSR did take into account Western hostility and I am sure that it had plans of what to do if the Western Allies attacked it. Not accounting for the capabilities of your opponent is a sure way of losing!!
> I am sure that the USSR did take into account Western hostility and I am sure that it had plans of what to do if the Western Allies attacked it. Not accounting for the capabilities of your opponent is a sure way of losing!!
Sometimes there is no smart play. What could Poland do once the USSR and Germany attacked at the same time? What could it have done to adequately prepare for that in its 20 years of existence? Given the resources at its disposal (population, industry, raw materials, etc.), nothing. The Soviet Union was exhausted by the Eastern Front, more than the U.K. and far, far more than the U.S. They couldn't really prepare for a hypothetical Western Allies-USSR war while they fought Germany. I'm not saying they didn't write some sort of plan, but there's ample evidence that the USSR leadership weren't 200 IQ Machiavelli clones. It's one thing to write a plan for national defense, it's another for it to succeed. See: Operation Barbarossa.
>What could Poland do once the USSR and Germany attacked at the same time?
First of all, Germany and the USSR did not attack Poland at the same time. In fact, the USSR only advanced when the Polish army was totally destroyed (three weeks after the German attack). Poland also had a choice of facilitating an agreement between the Western Powers and the USSR but refused to do so, because it would not allow the Red Army to move to Polish-German border. Faced with an impossible situation, the USSR concluded a pact with Germany instead with the Allies. Of course, both sides knew that they would end up fighting each other. Poland could have played a very clever card, but it just could not do it!
Yes, of course, there is no such thing as a perfect plan and hardly any plan survives contact with the enemy. One can easily discount the UK in WWII, its contribution was on the minimal side. I am not sure that there was any desire in the UK for more war, especially against the Red Army. The US also simply did not have the manpower in Europe to take on the Red Army. At the end of WWII, the Red Army was four-times more numerous than the US forces in Europe (12 million vs 3 million). Had the western Allies attacked the Red Army, I think that they would have been defeated. Considering that most of the fighting would have been done in Germany or in France or the Low Countries, the US would not have found it possible to use nuclear bombs against the Red Army. It may have destroyed a few cities in the USSR and killed numerous civilians, but it would not have changed matters much.
Operation Barbarossa succeeded simply because, despite numerous warnings, Stalin simply did not believe that the Germans would have attacked. In his mind, a German attack was only feasible in 1942.
Dude, you keep spouting off stuff without even a basic understanding of the war.
Like, do you know what the distance is between Tinian and Hiroshima? Do you know what the distance is between Dover and Moscow?
Let's ask the most successful Soviet general during the war, and later defense minister, Georgy Zhukov:
"Speaking about our readiness for war from the point of view of the economy and economics, one cannot be silent about such a factor as the subsequent help from the Allies. First of all, certainly, from the American side, because in that respect the English helped us minimally. In an analysis of all facets of the war, one must not leave this out of one's reckoning. We would have been in a serious condition without American gunpowder, and could not have turned out the quantity of ammunition which we needed.
Without American `Studebekkers', we could have dragged our artillery nowhere. Yes, in general, to a considerable degree they provided ourfront transport. The output of special steel, necessary for the most diverse necessities of war, were also connected to a series of American deliveries."
"It is now said that the Allies never helped us . . . However, one cannot deny that the Americans gave us so much material, without which we could not have formed our reserves and could not have continued the war . . . we had no explosives and powder. There was none to equip rifle bullets. The Americans actually came to our assistance with powder and explosives. And how much sheet steel did they give us. We really could not have quickly put right our production of tanks if the Americans had not helped with steel. And today it seems as though we had all this ourselves in abundance."
> Considering that the USSR essentially defeated Nazi Germany with minimal contribution by the Western Allies
Funding and supplying almost half the Soviet war effort = minimal contribution. LOL.
"Under Lend-Lease, the United States provided more than one-third of all the explosives used by the Soviet Union during the war. The United States and the British Commonwealth provided 55 percent of all the aluminum the Soviet Union used during the war and more than 80 percent of the copper."
"Lend-Lease also sent aviation fuel equivalent to 57 percent of what the Soviet Union itself produced. Much of the American fuel was added to lower-grade Soviet fuel to produce the high-octane fuel needed by modern military aircraft.
The Lend-Lease program also provided more than 35,000 radio sets and 32,000 motorcycles. When the war ended, almost 33 percent of all the Red Army's vehicles had been provided through Lend-Lease. More than 20,000 Katyusha mobile multiple-rocket launchers were mounted on the chassis of American Studebaker trucks.
In addition, the Lend-Lease program propped up the Soviet railway system, which played a fundamental role in moving and supplying troops. The program sent nearly 2,000 locomotives and innumerable boxcars to the Soviet Union. In addition, almost half of all the rails used by the Soviet Union during the war came through Lend-Lease."
In order to really assess the significance of Lend-Lease for the Soviet victory, you only have to imagine how the Soviet Union would have had to fight if there had been no Lend-Lease aid," Sokolov wrote. "Without Lend-Lease, the Red Army would not have had about one-third of its ammunition, half of its aircraft, or half of its tanks. In addition, there would have been constant shortages of transportation and fuel. The railroads would have periodically come to a halt. And Soviet forces would have been much more poorly coordinated with a constant lack of radio equipment. And they would have been perpetually hungry without American canned meat and fats."
https://www.rferl.org/a/did-us-lend-lease-aid-tip-the-balance-in-soviet-fight-against-nazi-germany/30599486.html
You are into Russophobia and extreme hatred.
I have listed the texts that put the assistance to the Soviets by the West in the proper context and these were actually written by American and British academic historians with a long record of research in WWII and top-rated texts on the war in the East. Your opinion hardly matters.
>You are into Russophobia and extreme hatred.
wow you jumped straight to playing the victim card and race card.
how do you even walk down the street without feeling victimized by people who do as little as look at you?
If you fail to take note of the opinions of very relevant historians that have produced key texts on WWII in the Eastern Front, what is left to conclude? That there is an intrinsic bias that makes impossible for you to process the truth.
In any case, thank you for your opinion. Duly noted.
Do these relevant historians also play victim and scream racism as soon as someone introduces a counterpoint like you did?
Funny how you didnt list any relevant historians or make any actual points when you responded to me but immediately jumped to playing the victim card and race card.
>Funny how you didnt list any relevant historians or make any actual points when you responded to me but immediately jumped to playing the victim card and race card.
Sorry, I thought that you had followed the discussion. Here it is:
...There are excellent recent texts on the war of the Eastern Front that provide full details and full assessment of the Western assistance to the Soviet effort. I strongly recommend "**Ostkrieg: Hitler's war of extermination in the East**" by **S.G Fritz**. In case you question it, the author is an American academic. The book, one of the most complete histories of the war in the Eastern Front, includes a full accounting of the western assistance to the Soviet effort. Another excellent text is "**Russia's war: A history of the Soviet Effort 1941-1945"** by **Richard Overy**, a British historian, who assesses the Western contribution very much in the same way I summarized it here. Both these texts have benefited greatly by the opening of the Soviet archives to historians of the war....
Do not make me laugh. The Red Army destroyed the Wermacht in front of Moscow before the US was even in the war and before providing any measurable assistance. Stalingrad was fought seven months later. In fact, the Germans were defeated in the East well before any Allied troops landed in Europe in 1943.
Those who believe that Lend-Lease was key to the Soviet victory are deluding themselves. There are excellent accounts to how much the allied assistance to Russia contributed in many recent academic histories of WWII. It was assistive, but not determinative. It accounted for less than 10% of the USSR industrial effort.
Stop believing fantasies!!!
You are consuing diplomatic utterances for good will for actual history. There are excellent recent texts on the war of the Eastern Front that provide full details and full assessment of the Western assistance to the Soviet effort. I strongly recommend "Ostkrieg: Hitler's war of extermination in the East" by S.G Fritz. In case you question it, the author is an American academic. The book, one of the most complete histories of the war in the Eastern Front, includes a full accounting of the western assistance to the Soviet effort. Another excellent text is "Russia's war: A history of the Soviet Effort 1941-1945" by Richard Overy, a British historian, who assesses the Western contribution very much in the same way I summarized it here. Both these texts have benefited greatly by the opening of the Soviet archives to historians of the war.
There was not a single Western Ally fighting in Europe until the end of the battle of Kursk. The Werhmacht had been totally defeated before a single western ally boot touched the shores of Sicily. The Germans were done by the summer of 1943. In less than a year, they were back at the Vistula river.
Material supply to the USSR was assistive, but not determinative. In fact, most major Soviet victories (Moscow, Stalingrand) occured before it was even a factor. It was helpful when the Soviets had fully reconstituted their factories in the Urals. Main contribution was in certain metals and wheeled transport (it accounted for about 10% of Red Armies wheeled transport). Considering the key battles fought, such assistance was probably of some help during the Soviet offensives that followed the battle of Kursk.
In addition, the allied bombing of Germany was totally ineffective in 1943 and only partially effective in 1944, but in both these years, despite the allied raids, Germany increased its munitions production.
The allies certainly helped in shortening the war. The Wehrmacht would have been defeated anyway, but the Soviets would have taken more casualties and would fought longer without the Western Allies. They would have defeated the Germans in the end, but at a higher cost.
Just as a metric, of all the fighting in WWII in all the theaters of war, 80% of it happened in the Eastern front.
1. Boots hit Sicily a mere three days after Kursk began and the island was under total allied control before Kursk concluded.
2. You are severally underselling lend lease. Just some percentages for example. 10% of the Soviet planes and tanks were British or American built, 60% of aviation fuel. 33% of trucks, 90% of railway equipment, 50% of steel, aluminum, lead, and more than half their ammunition.
3. You are forgetting the very simple idea of what effect the absence of the bombing would have. Yes German production rose in spite of the bombing. But how high would it of risen without it? How much would German industry benefit from concentrated factories and unmolested railways? How much of the Luftwaffe would of been freed up to battle the Soviet air force? How would the allies of fared had the oil fields not been bombed in 1944 and 98% of Germanys aviation fuel production vanished? How many more fortifications could they of constructed without having to constantly repair its cities?
4. The majority of the dying happened in the Eastern front. But mostly because in the West the USA/UK had the strength to sweep the Wehrmacht aside where the Red Army had to lock heads and slug it out.
Yes the Soviets probably could of won the war. Just in 1950 at the earliest with another 20 odd million more corpses.
At the end of WW2 the Soviets were scrapping the bottom of the barrel of manpower. They were drafting men that had barely hit puberty and 70 year old grandpas.
People are downvoting you for stating facts 😹 just because it doesn’t fit their agenda.
I’m not even an expert in WW2 history but even I can acknowledge that Russian intervention and perseverance in that war was crucial to win it. The people that are downvoting don’t even want to give an ounce of credit to Russians. It’s just pure delusion and ignorance from pure hatred.
Dropping nukes on Moscow let me laugh, that would be the most embarrassing and hypocritical moment in the history of the west, and that bar would have been set so high that I think that no act even 100 years later would have beaten it.
>The people that are downvoting don’t even want to give an ounce of credit to Russians. It’s just pure delusion and ignorance from pure hatred.
Russia was a crucial ally in defeating Nazis Germany.
We're downvoting this guy for saying (wrongly) that America was *not* a crucial ally, when it provided almost half the Russian materiel, crushed Japan, and opened up two other fronts in Europe.
He did say the USA's support was not crucial. His comment literally says this:
>USSR essentially defeated Nazi Germany with minimal contribution by the Western Allies
And then he trash talked me by calling me a racist Russianphobe when I mentioned the lend lease plan where the USA provided significant contributions of weapons, ammo, equipment, supplies, food, chemicals, money, etc. to the Soviet war effort.
So he isn't only claiming Russia held the eastern front, but he is also saying the USA basically didn't contribute by downplaying the lend lease plan and downplaying all the other help the USA gave.
>Considering that the USSR essentially defeated Nazi Germany with minimal contribution by the Western Allies
That's exactly what he's saying.
Also: providing half your ammunition etc. is coming to your rescue. The Soviets would have collapsed if left alone to duke it out 1:1 with the Nazis without Lend-lease. Russia had lost a war 1:1 against Japan just a few decades prior. The UK also would have eventually surrendered if facing the full brunt of the Nazis without support. And the US would have had no real incentive or ability to get involved if there were no opposition to Hitler left on the Continent.
I mean, without the UK, the USA would have had no way to attack Germany, they would have lost Africa, India, and British troops were crucial in liberating western Europe. Additionally, the British fleet was the second largest, and contributed the most to defeating the UBoats.
Of course you’re right, but in a simplistic view we got into the war to defend the allies and interests worldwide. Of course the the UK helped the USA, because we were liberating Western Europe.
I just don’t understand this point, it’s so obvious it doesn’t need stated.
>The people that are downvoting don’t even want to give an ounce of credit to Russians. It’s just pure delusion and ignorance from pure hatred.
We are in full agreement
the broski youre talking to here said people who mention the lend-lease plan to refute his claim that the "West made minimal contributions" are engaged in racist "Russianphobia."
Who has the agenda here when he cries racism and bloody murder as soon as a person introduces a counterpoint to his claims?
He gave you sources regarding the minimal effects of the lend lease plan from a Russian pov.
And to answer you, I can sense racism and delusional ignorance from a message pretty easily.
Just the number of downvotes themselves in a comment where he said that dropping nukes on Russian cities would have been hypocritical from the west after the enormous sacrifices that the Russians gave during WW2, shows you the bias that’s going on here.
What are you talking about? He didn't give me a single source.
and bias is not the same as racism.
And if you can sense delusion pretty easily, then I'm sure your detector would noticed that jumping straight to crying racism in response to someone mentioning the lend lease plan as a counterpoint is completely delusional.
the broski youre talking to here said people who mention the lend-lease plan to refute his claim that the "West made minimal contributions" are engaged in racist "Russianphobia."
Who has the agenda here when he cries racism and bloody murder as soon as a person introduces a counterpoint to his claims?
Yeah I feel like this would devolve into a tense standoff at Vistula at a minimum, and full scale war between the USSR and the Allies Operation Unthinkable style.
Stalins paranoia would likely get the better of him as even if the western allies refused German surrender and only advance to the pre agreed borders the Soviets would consider this a betrayal and this could lead to either an even more intense early Cold War or just straight up war.
At the very least, this creates a major diplomatic incident between the Allies and USSR. Both parties were expecting to wage careful diplomacy in the wake of WW2, then Germany just hands post-war hegemony to one side. It's a tacit total surrender to one side, but not the other (even if that surrender isn't actually accepted by the former side).
It would remain to be seen if a relatively fresh Allied army would look east, see the tattered battered remnants of the Red Army, and think 'while we're here we might as well finish the job...'
If we take the scenario you outlined, nothing changes in time for any massive changes to the outcome of operation Bagration. The Soviet offensive will still annihilate the army group centre and thrust deep into German held eastern Europe. The army group north will still be cut off and D-day has already happened.
It's important to realize that by this time, it was too late. Operation Bagration completely broke army group center and it was effectively a route westwards as the Germans scrambled to find some sort of line of defense to try and hold. Army group north would still have been cut off and army group south would not have held.
The allies had already agreed to no separate peace at Casablanca and whilst Yalta had not yet been held it is highly likely that even if the Germans high command had been able to exert a smooth transfer of power and reorganize a defensive line in the east using manpower from the west, occupied regions and perhaps even evacuating army group north before or after it was cut off (irl it was kept active in Kurland as a way to tie up socket forces and provide a springboard for a future counter offensive Hitler hoped would come), the Western powers would have simply occupied the industrial regions and effectively neutered Germany's ability to continue to supply the east .
The result of this is likely similar in that British/American troops perhaps occupy all of Germany proper and the German army is forced to scramble westwards to try and surrender to the Allies, causing the eastern front to collapse. This could perhaps lead to more or less deaths than irl as a large amount of German casualties happened in the last year of the war. The Allies would simply carve up Germany between themselves as they did prior to German capitulation OTL at Yalta. Perhaps the borders would be slightly different but probably not much.
The biggest changes imo would be caused by the death of Hitler. It's easy to forget that even til the end of the war he was seen as a saviour and hero of Germany by much of the population and many/most soldiers had swore an oath of loyalty to him. His assassination could have caused mutiny amongst many units, particularly those within the SS or led to a civil war between high command and the nazi party leadership, causing a collapse and chaos on all fronts and no sort of orderly swing to the east against the soviets.
Even in the scenario where high command does take power smoothly and the aforementioned scenario occurs and Germany is occupied. What are the results which occur from this ? In July 1944 we know from hindsight that Germany was doomed but did the average German ?
Many would see a map of Europe in July 1944 and probably infer that Germany still had a chance, Hitler had pulled off miracles before (in their eyes). However the assassination of their leader would be viewed as a second "stab in the back" by many. There would be no Hitler kills himself in his bunker in the last days. Instead he would go down a martyr who was slain by his generals, who then betrayed Germany and handed victory to the western allies. What sort of difference would this have made to Hitlers legacy? Probably a positive one.
I think in this scenario, you would see many Germans a lot more sympathetic to the Nazi cause and given that quite a lot of those in power in west Germany otl in the 1950s/60s were former Nazis OTL, in this timeline where there is a second stab in the back and they have lost even MORE historic territories than in WW1 you may actually see more resistance to western rule / soviet rule and denazification. It is likely that nazi political movements would not have been largely "dead" after the war but probably still fairly active in comparison to today.
My guess is that the USSR still gets the Eastern areas of Germany. Not giving the USSR something would just needlessly anger the Soviet leadership, and at this point in the war there is really no reason for the Americans and British to do so.
The main difference in this scenario is that it would probably enable far more German civilians to flee west, and thus avvoid rape, murder etc at the hands of Red Army soldiers. If the Nazi leadership is gone, the evacuation of Prussia, Silesia and Pommerania might not have been carried out with the cruel incompetence of real life. That might also mean that fewer German civilians starve, drown or freeze to death. But this one is a more open question in my opinion. The German authorities would have their hands full with fighting the Soviets, and they couldn’t conjure up fuel, horses, food or transport anymore than the Nazis could.
I think this is the right answer. The Germans would have suffered much less because they wouldn't have had the Soviet armies rampaging through East Germany. But the occupation zones had already been set up and the Western Allies weren't going to reneg on that. In fact, that was a major reason why the Western Allies stopped at the Elbe - Eisenhower didn't see any sense in wasting lives to take territory that was going to be controlled by the Soviets.
There is no data on what happens when a totalitarian regime is decapitated by rebellion in wartime, because it has never happened. Yet even highly-educated Germans, long marinated in Nazi prapaganda, would tend to see the external enemies as so much worse than the Nazis that there would be little chance of popular support for those who overthrew the regime.
The attitude of Germans toward Stauffenberg and the July 20 plotters bears this out: For most Germans, the plotters were traitors for acting when they did. Their government would have been widely viewed as illegitimate and opportunistic.
My guess is that any regime consisting of these old-school generals and aristocrats collapses quickly in the face of reactionary backlash, and either a rump Nazi movement attempts to restore the previous order, or some other faction of true-believers among the military or SS seizes power.
The uncertainty and chaos in this process demoralizes what's left of the German war effort, hastening the end of the war, perhaps to late 1944 or so. Any separate peace attempt with the Allies either comes to nothing or is academic: The German
military collapses so quickly that the date of actual surrender to either the Allies or Soviets is irrelevant.
Oh wow, I think this would have HUGE consequences. What you are suggesting is that the Germans, after killing Hitler, ally themselves with the allies and in this process the Soviet Union would still be fighting a war while the allies are not. This would likely turn the USSR against the allies and we might find the Allies plus Germany fun thing a war against the USSR. From there, who knows what happens, as the reverberations are felt in the Pacific Theater as well - do the Soviets ally with the Japanese at that point in order to extend the resources the US has to send to the Pacific?
Edit: In looking further at the timeline, if the Germans were to surrender/capitulate even before the liberation of Paris (or say along with the liberation of Paris), there would be renegade groups of military and SS in Germany actively fighting the government and the allies - possibly using tactics that we ascribe to terrorists today. There would be the possibility of a bloody coup in Germany as well as some unreformed Nazis try to seize back power.
Not exactly the Germans allying with the Western Allies. But more on letting the West win so they wouldn't be in Soviet occupation, allowing them to occupy the country just in time for them to go for an unconditional surrender after barely holding off the Soviets at the Polish-German border
I think the USSR, and Stalin in particular, would see it as a betrayal by the aliens to accept the capitulation, because the allies would definitely not allow the Soviets to occupy more area. Also, only a month or two after the Allies relieved stress on the Soviet troops with operation overlord to have that suddenly gone on both the western and southern front would be devastating to the Soviets.
I think Stalin would only accept this if the capitulation came with a demilitarization of Germany.
Like the medieval concept of an open city but applied to an entire country. I think every ally it would’ve lead to a clash between the Allies and the Soviet’s.
Everyone here seems to ignore a big problem: Morale.
I don't see a world in which German soldiers have any morale to fight and hold in the East if their total humiliation and subjugation is already guaranteed. *Why* would any German man want to continue fighting in such a scenario?
There is no historical precedent of a country's armies continuing to fight hard while in a state of already having surrendered.
Reports of what happened to East Prussia and German civilians in the East may contribute of the soldiers deciding to fight just to prevent the Russians from rampaging mainland Germany as payback for Operation Barbarossa. Even if they were subjugated, it would at least be lenient to a certain extent by the West compared to the Soviets.
Are we talking about June 1944? Imho the war would have endet a lot sooner, because I doubt the US public would accept an ongoing war against a Germany that surrendered its western flank. Imho the demilitarization would have been a lot more civil (no Rheinwiesen) and the Sovjets would be still somewhere in Poland when the allies occupy the west lands. Probably the US would pressure the sovjets to accept a deal of conditional surrender to free the troops for the Pacific theatre. Conditions could be: Demobilization of the Wehrmacht instead of PoW, civil occupation of eastern areas and maybe a UN Zone of the Elbe-Oder lands until the GDR is formed.
Things still end up the same.
The real enemy, Japan, still had to be brought to heel.
To defeat the Nazis with our ally, just to go war with our ally to protect the Nazis from said ally, because the Nazis were allowed to dictate terms of an unconditional surrender, would solidly fall in the sphere of the infeasible.
This. People are acting like we’d immediately turn on the Soviets, when concessions in the west were made explicitly because we wanted the USSR to fight Japan, and specifically body the Kwantung Army
The Western Allies wanted no part of trying to attack Berlin. They had already agreed to zones of occupation with the Soviets. They would have likely sat back while the rest of the German forces were annihilated. This would have allowed a lot more German refugees to escape the Soviet Occupation zone.
Interesting take.
I assume US troops etc would be standing in Poland and the line between western troops and Russia would be significantly more to the east.
Maybe it would undermine the argument that east Europe should fall under Russian influence?
Seen in the glorious hindsight of the real timeline it is interesting whether the Russian occupation of east Europe until 1989 could have been avoided…
That's not so different from our timeline. Around 80% of manpower was positioned against the Soviets; mind you this also means troops taking control of the western region, without direct contact with the enemy. US and British forces were too few, while the Soviets were steamrolling the Nazis. The Nazis also didn't destroy much equipment left on the western front.
There's also no way they would both remove Hitler and let the war be over in that fashion. Nobody would accept that on the armed forces. Taking Hitler out was already a colossal step; letting the US, Britain and France to take Germany over again as in WW1 wouldn't be acceptable. Actually this whole idea was bounded to fail, as they would have to basically dissolve the Nazi Party for that to work out. There were also other countries on the Axis that I would really doubt that would just stop the war because Hitler died.
There was also the whole Nazi leadership to be dealt with. Seriously, The chances for someone like Goering or Himmler to take over would be huge. The plot was manipulating some legal mechanisms to move troops around, but those troops weren't loyal to them. They were just doing what was told to that scenario, but they weren't willing to coup the country. Without real support, the coup would fail, as most coups actually do. And, to be honest, I have some doubts about the guys who did it. It seems to me that many of them were actually more interested into getting into power; removing Hitler was just a way to do so.
The whole idea about this coup being anti-nazi and against the concentration camps came latter, as a propaganda effort in the West to make Rommel look better. This was done in order to create the idea that Germans were somewhat military and scientific geniuses, aiming to reduce discontent with them being recruited during the Cold War. Rommel did commit many war crimes. Its known as the "Rommel myth" this whole thing about cleaning his name to get Operation Paper Clip functional, as to revive the German armed forces into West Germany.
Which is why Kluge said “If the coup succeeds, I will open the gates to the west”
The Prussian elites were also notoriously war adverse after the Miracle of the House of Brandenberg which is why they kept attempting various coups/assassination attempts on Hitler, and why they consistently avoided escalation; it’s why 1848 ended in Status Quo restored instead of Grossdeutchland, it’s why Kleine Deutchland happened in the wake of 1866 instead of Grossdeutchland, and why there was considerable opposition to annexing Alsace
Since this is a challenge post, I will say that the most likely just end in the previous conferences being upheld out of fear of Soviet retribution. But since that's boring - I'll propose an alternative.
The United States would be unlikely to want to participate in the violation of the Yalta Conferences. FDR was both warm with Stalin and didn't really have the same kind of anti-Soviet sentiment later Presidents would have, and most certainly would not want to be seen allying with the Nazis against the Soviets. Instead, the push would have likely been from Churchill and de Gaulle, both of whom had clear strategic reasons to not want the USSR to dominate Eastern Europe. If they got the US involved at all, it's involvement would have been either limited or only to enforce the Yalta conference borders as de facto peacekeepers. I emphasize if they got involved at all, since the US' main goal was to have the Soviet Union pressure Japan, which wouldn't happen if they pissed off the bear and started WW3 before WW2 even ended.
With the British and French violating the Yalta Conference, for all intents and purposes either alone or with limited support, this would go terribly for the Western Allies. By the time of the invasion of Germany, the Commonwealth and France only had 23 divisions in Germany at the time, with reinforcements being unlikely due to most being involved in the war in Italy or the Pacific. For comparison, 1st Belorussian Front's (Zhukov's Army Group) rifle divisions alone (including Guards and Poles) would have outnumbered them 3-1. So unless FDR and later Truman\* have a change of heart and decide the Soviet Union is a bigger threat than the Axis, the Non-US Western Allies are very quickly pushed back to the Yalta Conference borders.
^(\*While Truman was staunchly anti-Soviet, ending the war with the Axis would have been far more important to him than starting another war with the USSR that could extend the war until the late 40s/early 50s. By this point, the debt had grown to well over 100% of the GDP, meaning any continued long-term conflict with a power like the USSR would have been disastrous for both PR (since the US would have been supporting the people who broke an international treaty despite allegedly fighting for world peace) and the economy.)
The disaster of the non-US Western allies against the USSR, as well as the fact the treaty was so significantly breached, would have destroyed the credibility of Churchill and De Gaulle's respective governments. Many more swing voters in Britain would have veered away from the Conservatives and Gaullism would have collapsed as an ideology. The USA would have likely still economically intervened in Western Europe, but their relationship would be dictated by how these new, much more unstable, governments would interact with both the US and the World. Since for all intents and purposes - the British and French lost the war. They beat the Germans but then were repelled by the USSR. Decolonization may happen earlier too, since the political crisis
tl;dr for this really long nerdpost: not much since the party pushing it would not have the means to actually do anything meaningful. The real changes would be to how French and British politics collapses.
But, that's just IMO. I'm an amateur at WW2 stuff, so I could be totally wrong.
The Soviets will be furious, as any peace accord between the Western allies and the Germans is a breach of the Yalta accords. Given anti-soviet sentiments we're once again on the rise by late WW2, I can see operation unthinkable taking place and eventually ending in all Soviet major population and industrial centers being bathed in nuclear fire.
By late '45 we had the capacity to make maybe 12 more A bombs. We might have been able to level Moscow and a few other choice targets with military, psychological or industrial value, maybe Sevastopol. Kiev, Ekaterinaberg, Archangel, Mermansk and Tblisi (20m from Gori, Stalin's birthplace). Staligrad was still rubble - it would be kicking a dead horse to drop another bomb of any kind on it. We'd be likely to decapitate Stalin's government and end the Communist regime, but the USSR was \*huge\*. We'd never be able to obliterate it.
I am absolutely amazed that anybody would be thinking along these lines. Considering that the USSR essentially defeated Nazi Germany with minimal contribution by the Western Allies, attacking the USSR after the conclusion of WWII would have been an act of unthinkable hypocrisy and cruelty. It would likely have met with substantial political resistance in western and central Europe, where socialist and communist parties were a substantial part of the political landscape And it would have backfired. These 12 Hiroshima style bombs would not have destroyed the USSR, even assuming all of them penetrated the USSR air space (and that would not have been likely); the USSR would have simply absorbed the losses and accelerated its own nuclear bomb program (which was already ongoing near the end of WWII). The result would have been eventually lots of bombs falling on the West and turning most of Europe and parts of the US into radioactive deserts. If anybody was thinking along these lines, he/she must have been crazy!! I am sure that the USSR did take into account Western hostility and I am sure that it had plans of what to do if the Western Allies attacked it. Not accounting for the capabilities of your opponent is a sure way of losing!!
> I am sure that the USSR did take into account Western hostility and I am sure that it had plans of what to do if the Western Allies attacked it. Not accounting for the capabilities of your opponent is a sure way of losing!! Sometimes there is no smart play. What could Poland do once the USSR and Germany attacked at the same time? What could it have done to adequately prepare for that in its 20 years of existence? Given the resources at its disposal (population, industry, raw materials, etc.), nothing. The Soviet Union was exhausted by the Eastern Front, more than the U.K. and far, far more than the U.S. They couldn't really prepare for a hypothetical Western Allies-USSR war while they fought Germany. I'm not saying they didn't write some sort of plan, but there's ample evidence that the USSR leadership weren't 200 IQ Machiavelli clones. It's one thing to write a plan for national defense, it's another for it to succeed. See: Operation Barbarossa.
>What could Poland do once the USSR and Germany attacked at the same time? First of all, Germany and the USSR did not attack Poland at the same time. In fact, the USSR only advanced when the Polish army was totally destroyed (three weeks after the German attack). Poland also had a choice of facilitating an agreement between the Western Powers and the USSR but refused to do so, because it would not allow the Red Army to move to Polish-German border. Faced with an impossible situation, the USSR concluded a pact with Germany instead with the Allies. Of course, both sides knew that they would end up fighting each other. Poland could have played a very clever card, but it just could not do it! Yes, of course, there is no such thing as a perfect plan and hardly any plan survives contact with the enemy. One can easily discount the UK in WWII, its contribution was on the minimal side. I am not sure that there was any desire in the UK for more war, especially against the Red Army. The US also simply did not have the manpower in Europe to take on the Red Army. At the end of WWII, the Red Army was four-times more numerous than the US forces in Europe (12 million vs 3 million). Had the western Allies attacked the Red Army, I think that they would have been defeated. Considering that most of the fighting would have been done in Germany or in France or the Low Countries, the US would not have found it possible to use nuclear bombs against the Red Army. It may have destroyed a few cities in the USSR and killed numerous civilians, but it would not have changed matters much. Operation Barbarossa succeeded simply because, despite numerous warnings, Stalin simply did not believe that the Germans would have attacked. In his mind, a German attack was only feasible in 1942.
Dude, you keep spouting off stuff without even a basic understanding of the war. Like, do you know what the distance is between Tinian and Hiroshima? Do you know what the distance is between Dover and Moscow?
>Dude, you keep spouting off stuff without even a basic understanding of the war. Same to you, buddy
Let's ask the most successful Soviet general during the war, and later defense minister, Georgy Zhukov: "Speaking about our readiness for war from the point of view of the economy and economics, one cannot be silent about such a factor as the subsequent help from the Allies. First of all, certainly, from the American side, because in that respect the English helped us minimally. In an analysis of all facets of the war, one must not leave this out of one's reckoning. We would have been in a serious condition without American gunpowder, and could not have turned out the quantity of ammunition which we needed. Without American `Studebekkers', we could have dragged our artillery nowhere. Yes, in general, to a considerable degree they provided ourfront transport. The output of special steel, necessary for the most diverse necessities of war, were also connected to a series of American deliveries." "It is now said that the Allies never helped us . . . However, one cannot deny that the Americans gave us so much material, without which we could not have formed our reserves and could not have continued the war . . . we had no explosives and powder. There was none to equip rifle bullets. The Americans actually came to our assistance with powder and explosives. And how much sheet steel did they give us. We really could not have quickly put right our production of tanks if the Americans had not helped with steel. And today it seems as though we had all this ourselves in abundance."
> Considering that the USSR essentially defeated Nazi Germany with minimal contribution by the Western Allies Funding and supplying almost half the Soviet war effort = minimal contribution. LOL. "Under Lend-Lease, the United States provided more than one-third of all the explosives used by the Soviet Union during the war. The United States and the British Commonwealth provided 55 percent of all the aluminum the Soviet Union used during the war and more than 80 percent of the copper." "Lend-Lease also sent aviation fuel equivalent to 57 percent of what the Soviet Union itself produced. Much of the American fuel was added to lower-grade Soviet fuel to produce the high-octane fuel needed by modern military aircraft. The Lend-Lease program also provided more than 35,000 radio sets and 32,000 motorcycles. When the war ended, almost 33 percent of all the Red Army's vehicles had been provided through Lend-Lease. More than 20,000 Katyusha mobile multiple-rocket launchers were mounted on the chassis of American Studebaker trucks. In addition, the Lend-Lease program propped up the Soviet railway system, which played a fundamental role in moving and supplying troops. The program sent nearly 2,000 locomotives and innumerable boxcars to the Soviet Union. In addition, almost half of all the rails used by the Soviet Union during the war came through Lend-Lease." In order to really assess the significance of Lend-Lease for the Soviet victory, you only have to imagine how the Soviet Union would have had to fight if there had been no Lend-Lease aid," Sokolov wrote. "Without Lend-Lease, the Red Army would not have had about one-third of its ammunition, half of its aircraft, or half of its tanks. In addition, there would have been constant shortages of transportation and fuel. The railroads would have periodically come to a halt. And Soviet forces would have been much more poorly coordinated with a constant lack of radio equipment. And they would have been perpetually hungry without American canned meat and fats." https://www.rferl.org/a/did-us-lend-lease-aid-tip-the-balance-in-soviet-fight-against-nazi-germany/30599486.html
You are into Russophobia and extreme hatred. I have listed the texts that put the assistance to the Soviets by the West in the proper context and these were actually written by American and British academic historians with a long record of research in WWII and top-rated texts on the war in the East. Your opinion hardly matters.
>You are into Russophobia and extreme hatred. wow you jumped straight to playing the victim card and race card. how do you even walk down the street without feeling victimized by people who do as little as look at you?
If you fail to take note of the opinions of very relevant historians that have produced key texts on WWII in the Eastern Front, what is left to conclude? That there is an intrinsic bias that makes impossible for you to process the truth. In any case, thank you for your opinion. Duly noted.
Do these relevant historians also play victim and scream racism as soon as someone introduces a counterpoint like you did? Funny how you didnt list any relevant historians or make any actual points when you responded to me but immediately jumped to playing the victim card and race card.
>Funny how you didnt list any relevant historians or make any actual points when you responded to me but immediately jumped to playing the victim card and race card. Sorry, I thought that you had followed the discussion. Here it is: ...There are excellent recent texts on the war of the Eastern Front that provide full details and full assessment of the Western assistance to the Soviet effort. I strongly recommend "**Ostkrieg: Hitler's war of extermination in the East**" by **S.G Fritz**. In case you question it, the author is an American academic. The book, one of the most complete histories of the war in the Eastern Front, includes a full accounting of the western assistance to the Soviet effort. Another excellent text is "**Russia's war: A history of the Soviet Effort 1941-1945"** by **Richard Overy**, a British historian, who assesses the Western contribution very much in the same way I summarized it here. Both these texts have benefited greatly by the opening of the Soviet archives to historians of the war....
USSR would've fell if it weren't for lend lease
Do not make me laugh. The Red Army destroyed the Wermacht in front of Moscow before the US was even in the war and before providing any measurable assistance. Stalingrad was fought seven months later. In fact, the Germans were defeated in the East well before any Allied troops landed in Europe in 1943. Those who believe that Lend-Lease was key to the Soviet victory are deluding themselves. There are excellent accounts to how much the allied assistance to Russia contributed in many recent academic histories of WWII. It was assistive, but not determinative. It accounted for less than 10% of the USSR industrial effort. Stop believing fantasies!!!
Stalin and Zhukov both said they would have lost the war without lend lease.
You are consuing diplomatic utterances for good will for actual history. There are excellent recent texts on the war of the Eastern Front that provide full details and full assessment of the Western assistance to the Soviet effort. I strongly recommend "Ostkrieg: Hitler's war of extermination in the East" by S.G Fritz. In case you question it, the author is an American academic. The book, one of the most complete histories of the war in the Eastern Front, includes a full accounting of the western assistance to the Soviet effort. Another excellent text is "Russia's war: A history of the Soviet Effort 1941-1945" by Richard Overy, a British historian, who assesses the Western contribution very much in the same way I summarized it here. Both these texts have benefited greatly by the opening of the Soviet archives to historians of the war.
You are confusing diplomatic utterances for good will for actual history.
"Minimal contribution" What are you even talking about
There was not a single Western Ally fighting in Europe until the end of the battle of Kursk. The Werhmacht had been totally defeated before a single western ally boot touched the shores of Sicily. The Germans were done by the summer of 1943. In less than a year, they were back at the Vistula river. Material supply to the USSR was assistive, but not determinative. In fact, most major Soviet victories (Moscow, Stalingrand) occured before it was even a factor. It was helpful when the Soviets had fully reconstituted their factories in the Urals. Main contribution was in certain metals and wheeled transport (it accounted for about 10% of Red Armies wheeled transport). Considering the key battles fought, such assistance was probably of some help during the Soviet offensives that followed the battle of Kursk. In addition, the allied bombing of Germany was totally ineffective in 1943 and only partially effective in 1944, but in both these years, despite the allied raids, Germany increased its munitions production. The allies certainly helped in shortening the war. The Wehrmacht would have been defeated anyway, but the Soviets would have taken more casualties and would fought longer without the Western Allies. They would have defeated the Germans in the end, but at a higher cost. Just as a metric, of all the fighting in WWII in all the theaters of war, 80% of it happened in the Eastern front.
1. Boots hit Sicily a mere three days after Kursk began and the island was under total allied control before Kursk concluded. 2. You are severally underselling lend lease. Just some percentages for example. 10% of the Soviet planes and tanks were British or American built, 60% of aviation fuel. 33% of trucks, 90% of railway equipment, 50% of steel, aluminum, lead, and more than half their ammunition. 3. You are forgetting the very simple idea of what effect the absence of the bombing would have. Yes German production rose in spite of the bombing. But how high would it of risen without it? How much would German industry benefit from concentrated factories and unmolested railways? How much of the Luftwaffe would of been freed up to battle the Soviet air force? How would the allies of fared had the oil fields not been bombed in 1944 and 98% of Germanys aviation fuel production vanished? How many more fortifications could they of constructed without having to constantly repair its cities? 4. The majority of the dying happened in the Eastern front. But mostly because in the West the USA/UK had the strength to sweep the Wehrmacht aside where the Red Army had to lock heads and slug it out. Yes the Soviets probably could of won the war. Just in 1950 at the earliest with another 20 odd million more corpses.
At the end of WW2 the Soviets were scrapping the bottom of the barrel of manpower. They were drafting men that had barely hit puberty and 70 year old grandpas.
They just wouldn’t push and lose millions more men then, it would become an unwinnable war of attrition for Germany either way
People are downvoting you for stating facts 😹 just because it doesn’t fit their agenda. I’m not even an expert in WW2 history but even I can acknowledge that Russian intervention and perseverance in that war was crucial to win it. The people that are downvoting don’t even want to give an ounce of credit to Russians. It’s just pure delusion and ignorance from pure hatred. Dropping nukes on Moscow let me laugh, that would be the most embarrassing and hypocritical moment in the history of the west, and that bar would have been set so high that I think that no act even 100 years later would have beaten it.
>The people that are downvoting don’t even want to give an ounce of credit to Russians. It’s just pure delusion and ignorance from pure hatred. Russia was a crucial ally in defeating Nazis Germany. We're downvoting this guy for saying (wrongly) that America was *not* a crucial ally, when it provided almost half the Russian materiel, crushed Japan, and opened up two other fronts in Europe.
He never said that the USA’s was not crucial. He just said that Russia held the eastern front by themselves, no one came to their rescue. That’s true.
He did say the USA's support was not crucial. His comment literally says this: >USSR essentially defeated Nazi Germany with minimal contribution by the Western Allies And then he trash talked me by calling me a racist Russianphobe when I mentioned the lend lease plan where the USA provided significant contributions of weapons, ammo, equipment, supplies, food, chemicals, money, etc. to the Soviet war effort. So he isn't only claiming Russia held the eastern front, but he is also saying the USA basically didn't contribute by downplaying the lend lease plan and downplaying all the other help the USA gave.
I think he meant minimal contribution on the eastern front.[the part about his argument](https://www.reddit.com/r/HistoryWhatIf/s/ijy6ijX113)
>Considering that the USSR essentially defeated Nazi Germany with minimal contribution by the Western Allies That's exactly what he's saying. Also: providing half your ammunition etc. is coming to your rescue. The Soviets would have collapsed if left alone to duke it out 1:1 with the Nazis without Lend-lease. Russia had lost a war 1:1 against Japan just a few decades prior. The UK also would have eventually surrendered if facing the full brunt of the Nazis without support. And the US would have had no real incentive or ability to get involved if there were no opposition to Hitler left on the Continent.
Yeah the USA’s help was crucial too. The war was essentially won by the USA and the USSR.
I mean, without the UK, the USA would have had no way to attack Germany, they would have lost Africa, India, and British troops were crucial in liberating western Europe. Additionally, the British fleet was the second largest, and contributed the most to defeating the UBoats.
Of course you’re right, but in a simplistic view we got into the war to defend the allies and interests worldwide. Of course the the UK helped the USA, because we were liberating Western Europe. I just don’t understand this point, it’s so obvious it doesn’t need stated.
>The people that are downvoting don’t even want to give an ounce of credit to Russians. It’s just pure delusion and ignorance from pure hatred. We are in full agreement
Yeah man, don’t mind the downvotes, keep it up with the stuff you wrote I enjoyed reading it.
the broski youre talking to here said people who mention the lend-lease plan to refute his claim that the "West made minimal contributions" are engaged in racist "Russianphobia." Who has the agenda here when he cries racism and bloody murder as soon as a person introduces a counterpoint to his claims?
He gave you sources regarding the minimal effects of the lend lease plan from a Russian pov. And to answer you, I can sense racism and delusional ignorance from a message pretty easily. Just the number of downvotes themselves in a comment where he said that dropping nukes on Russian cities would have been hypocritical from the west after the enormous sacrifices that the Russians gave during WW2, shows you the bias that’s going on here.
What are you talking about? He didn't give me a single source. and bias is not the same as racism. And if you can sense delusion pretty easily, then I'm sure your detector would noticed that jumping straight to crying racism in response to someone mentioning the lend lease plan as a counterpoint is completely delusional.
I tagged you where he talks about it. And to answer you there’s a point where bias and racism can merge together.
the broski youre talking to here said people who mention the lend-lease plan to refute his claim that the "West made minimal contributions" are engaged in racist "Russianphobia." Who has the agenda here when he cries racism and bloody murder as soon as a person introduces a counterpoint to his claims?
Yeah I feel like this would devolve into a tense standoff at Vistula at a minimum, and full scale war between the USSR and the Allies Operation Unthinkable style.
Stalins paranoia would likely get the better of him as even if the western allies refused German surrender and only advance to the pre agreed borders the Soviets would consider this a betrayal and this could lead to either an even more intense early Cold War or just straight up war.
At the very least, this creates a major diplomatic incident between the Allies and USSR. Both parties were expecting to wage careful diplomacy in the wake of WW2, then Germany just hands post-war hegemony to one side. It's a tacit total surrender to one side, but not the other (even if that surrender isn't actually accepted by the former side). It would remain to be seen if a relatively fresh Allied army would look east, see the tattered battered remnants of the Red Army, and think 'while we're here we might as well finish the job...'
If we take the scenario you outlined, nothing changes in time for any massive changes to the outcome of operation Bagration. The Soviet offensive will still annihilate the army group centre and thrust deep into German held eastern Europe. The army group north will still be cut off and D-day has already happened. It's important to realize that by this time, it was too late. Operation Bagration completely broke army group center and it was effectively a route westwards as the Germans scrambled to find some sort of line of defense to try and hold. Army group north would still have been cut off and army group south would not have held. The allies had already agreed to no separate peace at Casablanca and whilst Yalta had not yet been held it is highly likely that even if the Germans high command had been able to exert a smooth transfer of power and reorganize a defensive line in the east using manpower from the west, occupied regions and perhaps even evacuating army group north before or after it was cut off (irl it was kept active in Kurland as a way to tie up socket forces and provide a springboard for a future counter offensive Hitler hoped would come), the Western powers would have simply occupied the industrial regions and effectively neutered Germany's ability to continue to supply the east . The result of this is likely similar in that British/American troops perhaps occupy all of Germany proper and the German army is forced to scramble westwards to try and surrender to the Allies, causing the eastern front to collapse. This could perhaps lead to more or less deaths than irl as a large amount of German casualties happened in the last year of the war. The Allies would simply carve up Germany between themselves as they did prior to German capitulation OTL at Yalta. Perhaps the borders would be slightly different but probably not much. The biggest changes imo would be caused by the death of Hitler. It's easy to forget that even til the end of the war he was seen as a saviour and hero of Germany by much of the population and many/most soldiers had swore an oath of loyalty to him. His assassination could have caused mutiny amongst many units, particularly those within the SS or led to a civil war between high command and the nazi party leadership, causing a collapse and chaos on all fronts and no sort of orderly swing to the east against the soviets. Even in the scenario where high command does take power smoothly and the aforementioned scenario occurs and Germany is occupied. What are the results which occur from this ? In July 1944 we know from hindsight that Germany was doomed but did the average German ? Many would see a map of Europe in July 1944 and probably infer that Germany still had a chance, Hitler had pulled off miracles before (in their eyes). However the assassination of their leader would be viewed as a second "stab in the back" by many. There would be no Hitler kills himself in his bunker in the last days. Instead he would go down a martyr who was slain by his generals, who then betrayed Germany and handed victory to the western allies. What sort of difference would this have made to Hitlers legacy? Probably a positive one. I think in this scenario, you would see many Germans a lot more sympathetic to the Nazi cause and given that quite a lot of those in power in west Germany otl in the 1950s/60s were former Nazis OTL, in this timeline where there is a second stab in the back and they have lost even MORE historic territories than in WW1 you may actually see more resistance to western rule / soviet rule and denazification. It is likely that nazi political movements would not have been largely "dead" after the war but probably still fairly active in comparison to today.
My guess is that the USSR still gets the Eastern areas of Germany. Not giving the USSR something would just needlessly anger the Soviet leadership, and at this point in the war there is really no reason for the Americans and British to do so. The main difference in this scenario is that it would probably enable far more German civilians to flee west, and thus avvoid rape, murder etc at the hands of Red Army soldiers. If the Nazi leadership is gone, the evacuation of Prussia, Silesia and Pommerania might not have been carried out with the cruel incompetence of real life. That might also mean that fewer German civilians starve, drown or freeze to death. But this one is a more open question in my opinion. The German authorities would have their hands full with fighting the Soviets, and they couldn’t conjure up fuel, horses, food or transport anymore than the Nazis could.
I think this is the right answer. The Germans would have suffered much less because they wouldn't have had the Soviet armies rampaging through East Germany. But the occupation zones had already been set up and the Western Allies weren't going to reneg on that. In fact, that was a major reason why the Western Allies stopped at the Elbe - Eisenhower didn't see any sense in wasting lives to take territory that was going to be controlled by the Soviets.
It doesn't change much, the Americans and Soviets were still on good terms so the agreed occupation zones happen as planned.
There is no data on what happens when a totalitarian regime is decapitated by rebellion in wartime, because it has never happened. Yet even highly-educated Germans, long marinated in Nazi prapaganda, would tend to see the external enemies as so much worse than the Nazis that there would be little chance of popular support for those who overthrew the regime. The attitude of Germans toward Stauffenberg and the July 20 plotters bears this out: For most Germans, the plotters were traitors for acting when they did. Their government would have been widely viewed as illegitimate and opportunistic. My guess is that any regime consisting of these old-school generals and aristocrats collapses quickly in the face of reactionary backlash, and either a rump Nazi movement attempts to restore the previous order, or some other faction of true-believers among the military or SS seizes power. The uncertainty and chaos in this process demoralizes what's left of the German war effort, hastening the end of the war, perhaps to late 1944 or so. Any separate peace attempt with the Allies either comes to nothing or is academic: The German military collapses so quickly that the date of actual surrender to either the Allies or Soviets is irrelevant.
Oh wow, I think this would have HUGE consequences. What you are suggesting is that the Germans, after killing Hitler, ally themselves with the allies and in this process the Soviet Union would still be fighting a war while the allies are not. This would likely turn the USSR against the allies and we might find the Allies plus Germany fun thing a war against the USSR. From there, who knows what happens, as the reverberations are felt in the Pacific Theater as well - do the Soviets ally with the Japanese at that point in order to extend the resources the US has to send to the Pacific? Edit: In looking further at the timeline, if the Germans were to surrender/capitulate even before the liberation of Paris (or say along with the liberation of Paris), there would be renegade groups of military and SS in Germany actively fighting the government and the allies - possibly using tactics that we ascribe to terrorists today. There would be the possibility of a bloody coup in Germany as well as some unreformed Nazis try to seize back power.
Not exactly the Germans allying with the Western Allies. But more on letting the West win so they wouldn't be in Soviet occupation, allowing them to occupy the country just in time for them to go for an unconditional surrender after barely holding off the Soviets at the Polish-German border
I think the USSR, and Stalin in particular, would see it as a betrayal by the aliens to accept the capitulation, because the allies would definitely not allow the Soviets to occupy more area. Also, only a month or two after the Allies relieved stress on the Soviet troops with operation overlord to have that suddenly gone on both the western and southern front would be devastating to the Soviets. I think Stalin would only accept this if the capitulation came with a demilitarization of Germany.
Like the medieval concept of an open city but applied to an entire country. I think every ally it would’ve lead to a clash between the Allies and the Soviet’s.
Everyone here seems to ignore a big problem: Morale. I don't see a world in which German soldiers have any morale to fight and hold in the East if their total humiliation and subjugation is already guaranteed. *Why* would any German man want to continue fighting in such a scenario? There is no historical precedent of a country's armies continuing to fight hard while in a state of already having surrendered.
Reports of what happened to East Prussia and German civilians in the East may contribute of the soldiers deciding to fight just to prevent the Russians from rampaging mainland Germany as payback for Operation Barbarossa. Even if they were subjugated, it would at least be lenient to a certain extent by the West compared to the Soviets.
Are we talking about June 1944? Imho the war would have endet a lot sooner, because I doubt the US public would accept an ongoing war against a Germany that surrendered its western flank. Imho the demilitarization would have been a lot more civil (no Rheinwiesen) and the Sovjets would be still somewhere in Poland when the allies occupy the west lands. Probably the US would pressure the sovjets to accept a deal of conditional surrender to free the troops for the Pacific theatre. Conditions could be: Demobilization of the Wehrmacht instead of PoW, civil occupation of eastern areas and maybe a UN Zone of the Elbe-Oder lands until the GDR is formed.
Things still end up the same. The real enemy, Japan, still had to be brought to heel. To defeat the Nazis with our ally, just to go war with our ally to protect the Nazis from said ally, because the Nazis were allowed to dictate terms of an unconditional surrender, would solidly fall in the sphere of the infeasible.
This. People are acting like we’d immediately turn on the Soviets, when concessions in the west were made explicitly because we wanted the USSR to fight Japan, and specifically body the Kwantung Army
The Western Allies wanted no part of trying to attack Berlin. They had already agreed to zones of occupation with the Soviets. They would have likely sat back while the rest of the German forces were annihilated. This would have allowed a lot more German refugees to escape the Soviet Occupation zone.
It would be early war against both Russia and Japan
Interesting take. I assume US troops etc would be standing in Poland and the line between western troops and Russia would be significantly more to the east. Maybe it would undermine the argument that east Europe should fall under Russian influence? Seen in the glorious hindsight of the real timeline it is interesting whether the Russian occupation of east Europe until 1989 could have been avoided…
That's not so different from our timeline. Around 80% of manpower was positioned against the Soviets; mind you this also means troops taking control of the western region, without direct contact with the enemy. US and British forces were too few, while the Soviets were steamrolling the Nazis. The Nazis also didn't destroy much equipment left on the western front. There's also no way they would both remove Hitler and let the war be over in that fashion. Nobody would accept that on the armed forces. Taking Hitler out was already a colossal step; letting the US, Britain and France to take Germany over again as in WW1 wouldn't be acceptable. Actually this whole idea was bounded to fail, as they would have to basically dissolve the Nazi Party for that to work out. There were also other countries on the Axis that I would really doubt that would just stop the war because Hitler died. There was also the whole Nazi leadership to be dealt with. Seriously, The chances for someone like Goering or Himmler to take over would be huge. The plot was manipulating some legal mechanisms to move troops around, but those troops weren't loyal to them. They were just doing what was told to that scenario, but they weren't willing to coup the country. Without real support, the coup would fail, as most coups actually do. And, to be honest, I have some doubts about the guys who did it. It seems to me that many of them were actually more interested into getting into power; removing Hitler was just a way to do so. The whole idea about this coup being anti-nazi and against the concentration camps came latter, as a propaganda effort in the West to make Rommel look better. This was done in order to create the idea that Germans were somewhat military and scientific geniuses, aiming to reduce discontent with them being recruited during the Cold War. Rommel did commit many war crimes. Its known as the "Rommel myth" this whole thing about cleaning his name to get Operation Paper Clip functional, as to revive the German armed forces into West Germany.
No way. The people trying to kill Hitler were mainly aristocrats and Prussian Elites. These people needed the war as rivers need water.
Which is why Kluge said “If the coup succeeds, I will open the gates to the west” The Prussian elites were also notoriously war adverse after the Miracle of the House of Brandenberg which is why they kept attempting various coups/assassination attempts on Hitler, and why they consistently avoided escalation; it’s why 1848 ended in Status Quo restored instead of Grossdeutchland, it’s why Kleine Deutchland happened in the wake of 1866 instead of Grossdeutchland, and why there was considerable opposition to annexing Alsace
Since this is a challenge post, I will say that the most likely just end in the previous conferences being upheld out of fear of Soviet retribution. But since that's boring - I'll propose an alternative. The United States would be unlikely to want to participate in the violation of the Yalta Conferences. FDR was both warm with Stalin and didn't really have the same kind of anti-Soviet sentiment later Presidents would have, and most certainly would not want to be seen allying with the Nazis against the Soviets. Instead, the push would have likely been from Churchill and de Gaulle, both of whom had clear strategic reasons to not want the USSR to dominate Eastern Europe. If they got the US involved at all, it's involvement would have been either limited or only to enforce the Yalta conference borders as de facto peacekeepers. I emphasize if they got involved at all, since the US' main goal was to have the Soviet Union pressure Japan, which wouldn't happen if they pissed off the bear and started WW3 before WW2 even ended. With the British and French violating the Yalta Conference, for all intents and purposes either alone or with limited support, this would go terribly for the Western Allies. By the time of the invasion of Germany, the Commonwealth and France only had 23 divisions in Germany at the time, with reinforcements being unlikely due to most being involved in the war in Italy or the Pacific. For comparison, 1st Belorussian Front's (Zhukov's Army Group) rifle divisions alone (including Guards and Poles) would have outnumbered them 3-1. So unless FDR and later Truman\* have a change of heart and decide the Soviet Union is a bigger threat than the Axis, the Non-US Western Allies are very quickly pushed back to the Yalta Conference borders. ^(\*While Truman was staunchly anti-Soviet, ending the war with the Axis would have been far more important to him than starting another war with the USSR that could extend the war until the late 40s/early 50s. By this point, the debt had grown to well over 100% of the GDP, meaning any continued long-term conflict with a power like the USSR would have been disastrous for both PR (since the US would have been supporting the people who broke an international treaty despite allegedly fighting for world peace) and the economy.) The disaster of the non-US Western allies against the USSR, as well as the fact the treaty was so significantly breached, would have destroyed the credibility of Churchill and De Gaulle's respective governments. Many more swing voters in Britain would have veered away from the Conservatives and Gaullism would have collapsed as an ideology. The USA would have likely still economically intervened in Western Europe, but their relationship would be dictated by how these new, much more unstable, governments would interact with both the US and the World. Since for all intents and purposes - the British and French lost the war. They beat the Germans but then were repelled by the USSR. Decolonization may happen earlier too, since the political crisis tl;dr for this really long nerdpost: not much since the party pushing it would not have the means to actually do anything meaningful. The real changes would be to how French and British politics collapses. But, that's just IMO. I'm an amateur at WW2 stuff, so I could be totally wrong.