History Learner
Well-known member
Initial idea 1)
a) Britain makes peace in 1940 after the fall of France.
b) Hitler invades the USSR in 41 and gets a bit further leading to a death fight in Moscow with a much larger Stalingrad resulting.
c) The USSR - with probably some indirect aid from UK and/or US gradually grinds down the Germans with horrendous costs to both side and any poor people caught under foot.
Eventually some peace agreement is made, depending on the balance of power at the time, before Soviet forces reach German territory. German civilian losses are minimal but military losses are even larger than OTL.
No Western Front means the Germans win, this isn't even questioned in academic works that look at this, as I've cited to you before.
Western Aid for the Soviet Union During World War II: Part II by Denis Havlat:
During World War II the Soviet Union received large amounts of aid from the Western world in the form of supplies and military intervention, both of which were declared to have been irrelevant for the Soviet Union’s victory over Nazi Germany by Soviet historians. This article examines the claim made by Soviet historiography, and it comes to the conclusion that both Western supplies and military intervention were far more helpful than claimed by the Soviets. Without this aid the Red Army would not have been able to perform as well as it did historically, tilting the balance in Germany’s favor. Soviet claims about the irrelevance of Western aid can thus be dismissed as propaganda and inaccurate.
Havlat also goes further, noting how the lack of the U.S. would have further effects:
Overall, the Western Allies were responsible only for a small fraction of the losses sustained by German infantry and armor between 1941 and 1943 (around 10 percent); however, their contribution in the destruction and occupation of the Luftwaffe was overwhelming. The same applies to their contribution in forcing the Germans to leave most heavy artillery in the Reich as anti-aircraft weapons, preventing them from being used as anti-tank weapons in the East. Without Allied military intervention, the Germans could have sent at least 2,000 additional tanks, some 5,000 additional 88 mm anti-aircraft guns, around 15,000 additional aircraft, tens of thousands of additional motor vehicles, and up to half a million additional soldiers to the Eastern Front in the years 1941–1943, which would have shifted the balance in their favor.
Further on:
Without the need to fight in the Atlantic; to transport large amounts of troops, equipment, and supplies across the entire continent; and the necessity to defend against Allied bombing, Germany could have massively reduced its U-boat, locomotive, and anti-aircraft gun and ammunition production and converted at least part of these capacities into the production of more aircraft and equipment for land warfare. Additionally, without bombing, and the need to maintain a large enough army to fight on several fronts, there would have been less need to use forced labor in the factories, thus boosting production. Historically, Germany already outproduced the USSR in certain areas like locomotives, trucks, and even bombers, with 12,664 produced by Germany in the years 1941–1943 as compared to 11,359 built by the USSR.170 Without Allied intervention and Lend-Lease, Soviet margins in these areas would most likely have widened, while margins in areas such as tanks would have shrunk significantly. If Germany and its industry could have concentrated on one single front from 1941 onwards, it most likely would have vastly changed the outcome of the war in the East.
Idea 2)
Simialar to 1) but a virtually exhausted Germany is gradually winning when Britain intervenes with some nukes to force a settlement of some kind. This could include attacks on both civilian targets - but still with German civilian losses less than OTL - or on possible military concentrations or a mix of both. Peace is imposed on both states with Germany occupied and de-Nazification started, the setting up of independent states in eastern Europe and the Soviets restricted in their territories. [I can't see Britain having either the resources or will to try and occupy and control the bulk of the USSR. Even if the US is also drawn in on the allied side but they need to remove Nazi Germany as a threat and also try and restore peace and economic development to continental Europe.
The War in the East would already long be decided by the time Britain develops nuclear weapons in the 1950s.