What if Hitler is out of command in 1944?

Jormungandr

The Midgard Wyrm
Founder
Weren't the atomic bombs originally meant for use on Germany before they were used as a quick way to end the war in the Pacific? I get the feeling Germany would end up being nuked, instead of Normandy or if Normandy was stalling/failed?
 

History Learner

Well-known member
Weren't the atomic bombs originally meant for use on Germany before they were used as a quick way to end the war in the Pacific? I get the feeling Germany would end up being nuked, instead of Normandy or if Normandy was stalling/failed?

According to those involved in the Manhattan Project, attacking Germany was never given any consideration beyond the theoretical level and was explicitly rejected for numerous reasons.

REPORTER: General Groves, could we go back for a minute. You mentioned in your book [Now it Can Be Told] that just before the Yalta Conference that President Roosevelt said if we had bombs before the European war was over he would like to drop them on Germany. Would you discuss this?​
GROVES: At the conference that Secretary Stimson and myself had with President Roosevelt shortly before his departure, I believe it was December 30th or 31st of 1944, President Roosevelt was quite disturbed over the Battle of the Bulge and he asked me at that time whether I could bomb Germany as well as Japan. The plan had always been to bomb Japan because we thought the war in Germany was pretty apt to be over in the first place and in the second place the Japanese building construction was much more easily damaged by a bomb of this character than that in Germany. I urged President Roosevelt that it would be very difficult for various reasons.​
The main one was that the Germans had quite strong aerial defense. They made a practice, as every nation does, that when a new plane came into the combat area, that they would run any risk that they could to bring such a plane down so that they could examine it and see what new ideas had come in so that they could make improvements and also would know the characteristics of the plane so that they could prepare a better defense against it. We had no B-29’s in Europe. If we had sent over a small squadron or group as we did against Japan of this type, everyone of them would have been brought down on the first trip to Germany. If they hadn’t been, it would have been through no lack of effort on the part of the Germans.​
The alternative would be to bring a large number of B-29’s over to to England and that would have been a major logistical task and the other possibility would have been to have used a British plane which would not have been a bit pleasing to General Arnold and also would have created a great many difficulties for our general operation because then it would be an Allied operation with the United States furnishing the bombs and everything connected with it but using a British plane and a British crew to actually drop the bomb and it would have raised a tremendous number of difficulties.​
And difficulties like that — while you say you should be able to handle that — you can but in a project of this character there are so many little things, each one of them key, that you can’t afford to throw any more sand into the wheels that you can help.​
The bombing of Germany with atomic bombs was, I would say, never seriously considered to the extent of making definite plans but on this occasion I told the President, Mr. Roosevelt, why it would be very unfortunate from my standpoint, I added that of course if the President — if the war demanded it and the President so desired, we would bomb Germany and I was so certain personally that the war in Europe would be over before we would be ready that you might say I didn’t give it too much consideration.​
Heck, dropping one on Germany might get the Japanese to surrender as well.

The Japanese were directly bombed twice and still had the 8-15 Incident, so I find this doubtful.
 

Jormungandr

The Midgard Wyrm
Founder
According to those involved in the Manhattan Project, attacking Germany was never given any consideration beyond the theoretical level and was explicitly rejected for numerous reasons.

REPORTER: General Groves, could we go back for a minute. You mentioned in your book [Now it Can Be Told] that just before the Yalta Conference that President Roosevelt said if we had bombs before the European war was over he would like to drop them on Germany. Would you discuss this?​
GROVES: At the conference that Secretary Stimson and myself had with President Roosevelt shortly before his departure, I believe it was December 30th or 31st of 1944, President Roosevelt was quite disturbed over the Battle of the Bulge and he asked me at that time whether I could bomb Germany as well as Japan. The plan had always been to bomb Japan because we thought the war in Germany was pretty apt to be over in the first place and in the second place the Japanese building construction was much more easily damaged by a bomb of this character than that in Germany. I urged President Roosevelt that it would be very difficult for various reasons.​
The main one was that the Germans had quite strong aerial defense. They made a practice, as every nation does, that when a new plane came into the combat area, that they would run any risk that they could to bring such a plane down so that they could examine it and see what new ideas had come in so that they could make improvements and also would know the characteristics of the plane so that they could prepare a better defense against it. We had no B-29’s in Europe. If we had sent over a small squadron or group as we did against Japan of this type, everyone of them would have been brought down on the first trip to Germany. If they hadn’t been, it would have been through no lack of effort on the part of the Germans.​
The alternative would be to bring a large number of B-29’s over to to England and that would have been a major logistical task and the other possibility would have been to have used a British plane which would not have been a bit pleasing to General Arnold and also would have created a great many difficulties for our general operation because then it would be an Allied operation with the United States furnishing the bombs and everything connected with it but using a British plane and a British crew to actually drop the bomb and it would have raised a tremendous number of difficulties.​
And difficulties like that — while you say you should be able to handle that — you can but in a project of this character there are so many little things, each one of them key, that you can’t afford to throw any more sand into the wheels that you can help.​
The bombing of Germany with atomic bombs was, I would say, never seriously considered to the extent of making definite plans but on this occasion I told the President, Mr. Roosevelt, why it would be very unfortunate from my standpoint, I added that of course if the President — if the war demanded it and the President so desired, we would bomb Germany and I was so certain personally that the war in Europe would be over before we would be ready that you might say I didn’t give it too much consideration.​


The Japanese were directly bombed twice and still had the 8-15 Incident, so I find this doubtful.
Yeah, the Japanese would've fought on despite that.

And, considering what happened to Dresden (which was so bad it actually frightened German High Command into thinking that if more cities were hit like that, they'd surrender -- I can't remember who said it, though. Was it Hitler himself?), nukes weren't really needed.

The firestorm consumed the entire city and suffocated the poor bastards who thought hiding in the tunnels and subways would save them. :(
 

History Learner

Well-known member
Yeah, the Japanese would've fought on despite that.

And, considering what happened to Dresden (which was so bad it actually frightened German High Command into thinking that if more cities were hit like that, they'd surrender -- I can't remember who said it, though. Was it Hitler himself?), nukes weren't really needed.

The firestorm consumed the entire city and suffocated the poor bastards who thought hiding in the tunnels and subways would save them. :(

I'm not sure what you're referring to so I can't comment on that, but it's worth noting a firestorm strategy was attempted IOTL and it failed because it's actually extremely hard to cause firestorms. Dresden, besides the horror of it as a war crime obviously, is remembered because of how unique it was; about the only other success of note was Hamburg. Engendering fire storms requires very specific local conditions and the application of large amounts of resources that probably are best used elsewhere. To really put this into context further, while Hiroshima did cause a firestorm, Nagasaki didn't and this was despite the Japanese housing standards being more conducive to such than the German one. If it's hit or miss with nuclear weapons, it should be telling about trying to use conventional weapons, even if in mass.

Outside of that, presuming Stalin cuts a deal in early to mid 1944, you've changed the air war picture dramatically. German historically was not only able to replace its losses in aircraft but even grew overall production 30% or so despite the ongoing bombing campaign into the Fall of 1944. The main bottleneck was the fuel situation, which meant maintaining training class sizes and standards became impossible. However, with the Soviets out, you've just freed up about 25% of the Luftwaffe's fuel consumption, which would allow the training programs to be continued at pre-existing standards and with increased sizes. That alone means the LW can continue to contest the skies over Germany itself and in localized conditions provide support to the German Army. The Anglo-Americans would retain Air Superiority but it wouldn't be the overwhelming Air Supremacy of OTL.

Outside of the Luftwaffe air arm, it also should be noted the flak arm of the Wehrmacht was becoming increasingly effective over the course of 1944-1945 with new tactics and weapons, in particular direct firing, fused shells and a new Radar system that was coming online in early 1945 that would've increased the trend in overall effectiveness in AA systems.
 

sillygoose

Well-known member
Yeah, the Japanese would've fought on despite that.

And, considering what happened to Dresden (which was so bad it actually frightened German High Command into thinking that if more cities were hit like that, they'd surrender -- I can't remember who said it, though. Was it Hitler himself?), nukes weren't really needed.

The firestorm consumed the entire city and suffocated the poor bastards who thought hiding in the tunnels and subways would save them. :(
I think you mean Hamburg. The RAF was fire storming city after city in 1945, Dresden was just one of the worst.

I'm not sure what you're referring to so I can't comment on that, but it's worth noting a firestorm strategy was attempted IOTL and it failed because it's actually extremely hard to cause firestorms. Dresden, besides the horror of it as a war crime obviously, is remembered because of how unique it was; about the only other success of note was Hamburg. Engendering fire storms requires very specific local conditions and the application of large amounts of resources that probably are best used elsewhere. To really put this into context further, while Hiroshima did cause a firestorm, Nagasaki didn't and this was despite the Japanese housing standards being more conducive to such than the German one. If it's hit or miss with nuclear weapons, it should be telling about trying to use conventional weapons, even if in mass.
There were major and minor firestorms. The major ones were Tokyo, Hamburg, and Dresden. There were a bunch of minor firestorms, especially in 1945:
In 2005, the American National Fire Protection Association stated in a report that three major firestorms resulted from Allied conventional bombing campaigns during World War II: Hamburg, Dresden, and Tokyo.[34] They do not include the comparatively minor firestorms at Kassel, Darmstadt or even Ube into their major firestorm category. Despite later quoting and corroborating Glasstone and Dolan and data collected from these smaller firestorms:
based on World War II experience with mass fires resulting from air raids on Germany and Japan, the minimum requirements for a firestorm to develop are considered by some authorities to be the following: (1) at least 8 pounds of combustibles per square foot of fire area (40 kg per square meter), (2) at least half of the structures in the area on fire simultaneously, (3) a wind of less than 8 miles per hour at the time, and (4) a minimum burning area of about half a square mile.
— Glasstone and Dolan (1977).[10]

Nukes though are really inefficient for producing firestorms:
The incendiary effects of a nuclear explosion do not present any especially characteristic features. In principle, the same overall result with respect to destruction of life and property can be achieved by the use of conventional incendiary and high-explosive bombs.[53] It has been estimated, for example, that the same fire ferocity and damage produced at Hiroshima by one 16-kiloton nuclear bomb from a single B-29 could have instead been produced by about 1,200 tons/1.2 kilotons of incendiary bombs from 220 B-29s distributed over the city; for Nagasaki, a single 21 kiloton nuclear bomb dropped on the city could have been estimated to be caused by 1,200 tons of incendiary bombs from 125 B-29s.[53][54][55]
Though you only need one bomber instead of a fleet of them.
 
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stevep

Well-known member
All American planning envisioned the collapse of the USSR or its removal from the war (a separate peace, regardless of the exact terms of such) would necessitate cutting a deal with Germany. As goes the United States, so goes the rest of the Western Allies. Worried about the voters? 40% of Americans were willing to cut a deal with the Germans in early 1944, prior to D-Day, and about the same were willing to do so in December of 1944 as the Bulge Offensive developed, so it wasn't exactly fickle support for a peace either. Specifically 25% of Americans were willing, according to May 1944 polling by Gallup, to leave Hitler himself in command and make peace along existing lines; i.e. with virtually all of Europe within the German sphere of influence.

There is evidence that the US might make a mistake like this. Hopefully once they developed nukes then a future US President would decide to take action to end the Nazis and bring some order and civilisation back to Europe. Possibly horrified by reports of events in the Nazi empire.

Less promising is that Britain or the Soviets would do this once they get the bomb and a suitable delivery device. Less promising in the British case because it would take a few years longer and Britain would struggle to maintain order over such a large and devastated and divided region. Possibly ending up with some sort of partition as OTL if the US has retired into isolationism again.

Even worse would be when the Soviets get the bomb, although a reliable delivery device might take them longer. That would probably lead to the entire continent ending up under Soviet rule.


Firstly, it needs to be pointed out Hitler is taken out here by an outside-coup event, which pretty much solves the issue; we don't have to get in those specifics because the OP already outlined the act. As noted, it's a Goering-dictatorship which essentially is backed by the Party on the Army. Vast swathes of the American electorate was willing to cut a deal with such a regime, as outlined above. As for what the peace deal entails, that depends on the exact outline of the scenario. Stalin was willing to cut a deal on Pre-1941 lines, while the Anglo-Americans can't exactly force terms if they are confined to a bridgehead in Normandy alone or the invasion has outright failed. We can quibble over that, but the U.S. can't do anything if the Soviets are out and the Germans are standing strong elsewhere.

Actually it says he's incapacitated, possibly in a coma for a few months. That doesn't preclude him making a recovery or simply being a living relic.

However more to the point its the Party still in power. It might have something of an internal power struggle given Goring wasn't in the best of health at this time and was more interested in gathering more loot than anything else. Which may be a good thing for the rest of the world. If they manage to stay in charge of a large amount of Europe then the death toll is likely to be horrendous for the survival of the regime.

Based on what?

If the European war effort has collapsed because of the Soviets making a deal with Hitler, the U.S. has exactly zero reason to trust Stalin, nevermind resume Lend Lease aid. Nor do the Soviets needing less resources in the West-for some magical reason-mean they suddenly overcome the fact their only route of supply to the Far East is a single railway stretched out across thousands of miles and which was only recently double tracked. It took until 1984 for the Soviets to sufficiently expand railway access in Siberia to help address this defect in logistics in the region. Their own estimates and Western intelligence gathering made it clear they could never seriously threaten the Japanese in Manchuria without vastly reducing the forces involved or U.S. logistical aid being provided.

Actually the US had no great faith in him before the German attack - or didn't if they had any sense - since he was a de facto ally of the Nazis. However if they want him as an ally to speed up the collapse of Japan they are likely to bite the bullet and go for it. Stalin might be interested as a way of leaving options open with the west and also gaining territory and influence in the east.

Even if this doesn't happen then when Japan surrenders - if it does as I know you think the Japanese empire would outlast the US willingness for revenge - then the Soviets are still in a position to enter Manchuria and related regions and give support to the communists. I know a lot of people argue that the KMT was in such a mess even without this support Mao would probably come out on top anyway. Not sure about this but a peace in Europe wouldn't necessarily prevent Mao gaining power in China. Especially since a US worried about the imbalance of power in Europe and possibly very badly blooded in Japan - where they win or not - would probably have little taste for opposing a communist take over of China.
 

stevep

Well-known member
According to those involved in the Manhattan Project, attacking Germany was never given any consideration beyond the theoretical level and was explicitly rejected for numerous reasons.

REPORTER: General Groves, could we go back for a minute. You mentioned in your book [Now it Can Be Told] that just before the Yalta Conference that President Roosevelt said if we had bombs before the European war was over he would like to drop them on Germany. Would you discuss this?​
GROVES: At the conference that Secretary Stimson and myself had with President Roosevelt shortly before his departure, I believe it was December 30th or 31st of 1944, President Roosevelt was quite disturbed over the Battle of the Bulge and he asked me at that time whether I could bomb Germany as well as Japan. The plan had always been to bomb Japan because we thought the war in Germany was pretty apt to be over in the first place and in the second place the Japanese building construction was much more easily damaged by a bomb of this character than that in Germany. I urged President Roosevelt that it would be very difficult for various reasons.​
The main one was that the Germans had quite strong aerial defense. They made a practice, as every nation does, that when a new plane came into the combat area, that they would run any risk that they could to bring such a plane down so that they could examine it and see what new ideas had come in so that they could make improvements and also would know the characteristics of the plane so that they could prepare a better defense against it. We had no B-29’s in Europe. If we had sent over a small squadron or group as we did against Japan of this type, everyone of them would have been brought down on the first trip to Germany. If they hadn’t been, it would have been through no lack of effort on the part of the Germans.​
The alternative would be to bring a large number of B-29’s over to to England and that would have been a major logistical task and the other possibility would have been to have used a British plane which would not have been a bit pleasing to General Arnold and also would have created a great many difficulties for our general operation because then it would be an Allied operation with the United States furnishing the bombs and everything connected with it but using a British plane and a British crew to actually drop the bomb and it would have raised a tremendous number of difficulties.​
And difficulties like that — while you say you should be able to handle that — you can but in a project of this character there are so many little things, each one of them key, that you can’t afford to throw any more sand into the wheels that you can help.​
The bombing of Germany with atomic bombs was, I would say, never seriously considered to the extent of making definite plans but on this occasion I told the President, Mr. Roosevelt, why it would be very unfortunate from my standpoint, I added that of course if the President — if the war demanded it and the President so desired, we would bomb Germany and I was so certain personally that the war in Europe would be over before we would be ready that you might say I didn’t give it too much consideration.​


The Japanese were directly bombed twice and still had the 8-15 Incident, so I find this doubtful.

The basic idea behind the development of nuclear weapons was to get them before Germany. Both in Britain and later in the US. As such if Germany wasn't on the verge of defeat then its likely that it would see some form of nuclear targeting. By Yalta OTL Germany was obviously in the last stage of collapse so Groves's point was valid but in the scenario being considered here - and assuming that the US doesn't admit defeat - it won't be.

The improved air defences if a Nazi-Soviet peace is made would be a problem, especially if this is assumed to be before and prevent a successful landing in N France as the allies would have to operate from Britain and Italy and possibly the Balkans if operations occurred there. However the sheer numerical and qualitative superiority of the allied air forces by this time is likely to see the Luftwaffe worn down, albeit being a longer and more costly process.

The big issue is its risky making a nuclear mission with a single a/c with such a position, especially by day while sending a lot of other bombers and a strong escort would risk a lot of collateral damage.

Use of Lancaster's were planned and a couple of squadrons had some training in the mission in case the B-29 failed to come through - since it had a lot of development problems. As such while Arnold and other elements in the USAAF wouldn't like having to rely on allies - who were also heavily involved in the development of the weapon after all - their going to be overridden by higher authorities.

They will be less effective against many German targets compared to Japan but then the same applied to conventional bombing. The biggest Japanese losses after all were in the terror attack against Tokyo rather than either nuclear strike. However - assuming the bomber delivers the load - its still logistically a lot cheaper than huge raids and there is the shock of a radical new weapon whereas conventional bombing was something populations on all sides had learnt to endure to a large degree.
 

History Learner

Well-known member
There is evidence that the US might make a mistake like this. Hopefully once they developed nukes then a future US President would decide to take action to end the Nazis and bring some order and civilisation back to Europe. Possibly horrified by reports of events in the Nazi empire.

Making peace in 1944 is a mistake but starting a nuclear Third World War isn't? Destroying countless cities and killing tens of millions is somehow better? Likewise, there is absolutely no appetite in the United States for such a war:

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Less promising is that Britain or the Soviets would do this once they get the bomb and a suitable delivery device. Less promising in the British case because it would take a few years longer and Britain would struggle to maintain order over such a large and devastated and divided region. Possibly ending up with some sort of partition as OTL if the US has retired into isolationism again.

Even worse would be when the Soviets get the bomb, although a reliable delivery device might take them longer. That would probably lead to the entire continent ending up under Soviet rule.

Most likely end result is none of the above, with a three way Cold War developing because Nazi Germany either directly or indirectly controls the bigger economy than UK or USSR and has the means of quickly developing its own nuclear devices combined with the ability to use them via the V-2 system or HE-177.

Actually it says he's incapacitated, possibly in a coma for a few months. That doesn't preclude him making a recovery or simply being a living relic.

Okay, so no internal power struggle because Goering is the figurehead leader with Hitler's explicit blessing and has the backing of the Army. Nobody is going to be making moves against the new regime in that context because if the Army doesn't remove you on their own, they have to consider how Hitler will react to his standing orders not being followed when/if he recovers.

However more to the point its the Party still in power. It might have something of an internal power struggle given Goring wasn't in the best of health at this time and was more interested in gathering more loot than anything else. Which may be a good thing for the rest of the world. If they manage to stay in charge of a large amount of Europe then the death toll is likely to be horrendous for the survival of the regime.

There will be no power struggle, Goering is the legal heir and has the backing of the Wehrmacht.

Actually the US had no great faith in him before the German attack - or didn't if they had any sense - since he was a de facto ally of the Nazis However if they want him as an ally to speed up the collapse of Japan they are likely to bite the bullet and go for it. Stalin might be interested as a way of leaving options open with the west and also gaining territory and influence in the east.

And they showed that displeasure by not extending lend lease until November of 1941, very late into Operation Barbarossa and as Moscow itself was under threat. If Stalin derails their war effort, they have exactly zero reason to support him in anything because he will appear to be an ally of Hitler again.

ven if this doesn't happen then when Japan surrenders - if it does as I know you think the Japanese empire would outlast the US willingness for revenge - then the Soviets are still in a position to enter Manchuria and related regions and give support to the communists. I know a lot of people argue that the KMT was in such a mess even without this support Mao would probably come out on top anyway. Not sure about this but a peace in Europe wouldn't necessarily prevent Mao gaining power in China. Especially since a US worried about the imbalance of power in Europe and possibly very badly blooded in Japan - where they win or not - would probably have little taste for opposing a communist take over of China.

I don't think Japan will outlast the U.S. in this scenario because the ETO of 1944-1945 has been avoided.

Specific to the issue of China, Mao coming into power was rather contingent on the Soviets occupying Manchuria and thus granting him a base from which to form and train cadres with loads of captured Japanese and gifted Soviet weapons, none of which exists here. Up to 1946, the KMT was winning and the turning point came with their failed effort to overrun Manchuria which ended in disaster; none of that is applicable here.
 
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History Learner

Well-known member
The basic idea behind the development of nuclear weapons was to get them before Germany. Both in Britain and later in the US. As such if Germany wasn't on the verge of defeat then its likely that it would see some form of nuclear targeting. By Yalta OTL Germany was obviously in the last stage of collapse so Groves's point was valid but in the scenario being considered here - and assuming that the US doesn't admit defeat - it won't be.

Except for the fact there is no documented planning of such, not one iota, but reams of data that suggest the war-time focus was always on using it against Japan. Hell, the focus wasn't even on atomic bombs at all in the U.S. until 1941, as the main focus was actually on submarine propulsion systems. Everything Groves outlines is still applicable here, with the exception of Germany clearly being on the ropes; the air defenses, German city construction, etc is all valid and even more so here.

The improved air defences if a Nazi-Soviet peace is made would be a problem, especially if this is assumed to be before and prevent a successful landing in N France as the allies would have to operate from Britain and Italy and possibly the Balkans if operations occurred there. However the sheer numerical and qualitative superiority of the allied air forces by this time is likely to see the Luftwaffe worn down, albeit being a longer and more costly process.

Except for the fact German airplane production was well above their loss rate, the bottleneck was pilot output which here has been solved. The Luftwaffe can thus continue to maintain a steady force, not increasing of course, but not declining either.

The big issue is its risky making a nuclear mission with a single a/c with such a position, especially by day while sending a lot of other bombers and a strong escort would risk a lot of collateral damage.

Among the many other objections, which is why attacking Germany was ruled out historically.

Use of Lancaster's were planned and a couple of squadrons had some training in the mission in case the B-29 failed to come through - since it had a lot of development problems. As such while Arnold and other elements in the USAAF wouldn't like having to rely on allies - who were also heavily involved in the development of the weapon after all - their going to be overridden by higher authorities.

Revolt of the Admirals, but this time its Generals and its war time. There's quite a bit the Armed Forces can do and would do to cause hell for the Administration, and none of their other objections have been addressed.

They will be less effective against many German targets compared to Japan but then the same applied to conventional bombing. The biggest Japanese losses after all were in the terror attack against Tokyo rather than either nuclear strike. However - assuming the bomber delivers the load - its still logistically a lot cheaper than huge raids and there is the shock of a radical new weapon whereas conventional bombing was something populations on all sides had learnt to endure to a large degree.

Okay?
 

sillygoose

Well-known member
Sorry, real life got busy again and I haven't had time to respond yet.

Your talking about deaths relating to warfare. I'm talking about total deaths relating to occupation policies, especially for the Nazis. Like those millions of deaths over decades under Mao. Except here probably over a distinctly shorter period.
I'm talking about all deaths from all causes, including soldiers during the war. Seeing as they were drafted civilians especially by later in the war I count them as victims of the war.

As to what killing the Nazis would do had they managed to hold the line and defeat the invasion of France...I'm not really sure how much killing they would continue to do after the war without Hitler in charge. He was the singular driving force behind killing the Jews, which Goering, an awful human being generally, did not pursue other than to maintain his position with Hitler. I'm getting that from Richard Overy's biography of him. Himmler would be a genocidal maniac, but not in charge here, nor was he at all popular with the public and would never rise above his station...which would remain much more limited without the worsening of the war situation and without the assassination attempt on Hitler.

In fact post war the Nazis might well be toppled given how the public really only liked Hitler and even then largely only until Stalingrad. He had his hard core of support, but that eroded the longer the war went on. Not that that would matter much in a world where Hitler is incapacitated and unable to resume his position. Even had Hitler remained in power other than completing the genocide of the Jews there really was no other large group of people that he could mass murder in peace time. Arguably the Holocaust was only possible given the war situation and without the context of the war being lost there was no way to really even carry out things like the 'germanization' of Poland and Czechoslovakia. As it was colonization efforts of the General Government in Poland was a massive failure due to resistance of the Poles and in Ukraine the UPA was not to be trifled with and in fact they were already heading toward ally status with the creation of the Ukrainian SS division. Same with the Baltic states, which had already had multiple divisions fighting for the Germans.

Doubtful. Most of the people dubious about the Nazis were already out of power if not dead and the party had tightened its grip on power and the population as a whole. Plus note that even the generals who tried killing Hitler in 44 were expecting to maintain a lot of their gains. Not to mention that any negotiated peace would mean than any parts of eastern Europe including the Balkans which didn't still end up under the German yoke would have come under Stalin's control. Neither he nor Roosevelt would have been happy leaving fascist dictators in power in Hungary, Romania, Bulgaria etc. Unless your suggesting this negotiated peace has a border say on the Dnieper in which case forget any plans about removing Hitler, let alone the Nazis as they would present this as an huge victory.
The population was fed up and sick of the Nazis by 1942 other than their hard core of support and resistance activities were picking up tremendously from 1942-43 before FDR dashed their hopes for a peace deal by rejecting the repeated offers through any channel. They still went ahead anyway in July and after the failure of that and the subsequent purge of the Resistance is then what largely eliminated resistance to the Nazis within Germany. Still even then there were figures who had gone to ground or were off the radar so to speak who could still organize resistance, especially if the army and public were sick enough of the Nazis to revolt. After all that is what it took to get rid of the Soviets in the 1990s despite how firmly entrenched that regime was.

The Resistance actually did not think they could maintain any gains and actually through Canaris offered total capitulation to the Wallies with the only caveat was the Soviets were not allowed into Central Europe. They hoped they could maintain some territorial gains, but did not even ask that of the Allies when they offered to coup Hitler and then surrender.
This book has a ton of details on the offer:


Here is an interview with Earle, the US agent who handled the contact with the Resistance:
As he says the offer had only a single string attached: keep the Soviets out of Central Europe and the Wallies had immediate and unconditional surrender otherwise.

I'm not sure you could really call Horthy a Fascist, definitely not with the king of Romania or Bulgaria. Yugoslavia would have been recreated under the king. Poland would have been recreated too under the government in exile in London. The Baltic states could be recreated as well with new democratic governments if desired. Finland just wanted it's 1939 border back, so wasn't really a fascist state either.

A peace deal in 1944 would leave the Soviets probably at their 1941 border at best and frankly no one would be in any position to demand more, either FDR, Churchill, or Stalin.

Since Morgenthau initial memo wasn't written until some time in 1944 would the Germans have known anything about it at the time? They might have expected something distinctly harsher than Versailles given the large scale failure of that to prevent further German militarism given their own war crimes but their unlikely to know about this. Don't forget that the reason Roosevelt insisted on unconditional surrender because he didn't want a repeat of the post-WWI situation when Germany itself had war crimes trials and pretty much acquitted everybody.
Unconditional surrender and the bombing campaign already made them assume the worst, the Morgenthau plan simply underlined the point. It wasn't like there wasn't propaganda material being circulated in the US at the time that was along the same thought lines anyway:
!

Plus there was apparently a German spy in the VP Wallace's entourage that was only uncovered when Fritz Kolbe started delivering intel to Allen Dulles in Switzerland in 1944, so it could have been known about during the draft stage.

Oh I'm well aware of FDR's thinking on the matter, there are several good books on the subject of the Morgenthau Plan and Unconditional Surrender, including the influence of a Soviet agent in the Treasury Department in creating it.

With Germany on the retreat yes and very hard pressed on all sides. Here their pretty much victorious, especially if they still hold much of the USSR region. In that case and with the allies and Soviets implicitly accepting continued Nazi control of most of Europe don't expect a now isolated Horthy being able to withstand pressure to enable the Nazis to complete their 'project' of rendering their empire 'Jew-free'.
Hungary was not part of the Reich and states not directly under the control of Hitler successfully resisted requests to turn over their Jews. See Denmark, Vichy France (until they were taken over by the Nazis directly), Hungary, and Romania (who had their own separate Holocaust, the only other state in Europe to do so). There really wasn't much Hitler could do given he relied heavily on Hungarian troops to help defend Ukraine, so Hitler needed the Hungarians and their industry more than they needed him, especially given their oil resources among other vital raw materials.

Not as badly as under the Nazis, where instead of being dominated their likely to end up pretty much as literal slaves. Not just those who had desires for independence or human rights but all of them.
Given that despite the war the vast majority were never enslaved, it simply isn't going to be possible given how many men Germany has lost and how many men would be needed to stay in the armed forces to maintain the new expanded empire.
Don't forget too that throughout the course of the Nazi force labor program about 12 million people were involved out of an occupied population of well over 200 million. Even then they weren't preferred but were the only option available with German soldiers fighting and dying in their millions. Though the Ostarbeiter and Poles were actually paid for their labor:
In general, foreign labourers from Western Europe had similar gross earnings and were subject to similar taxation as German workers. In contrast, he central and eastern European forced labourers received at most about one-half the gross earnings paid to German workers and much fewer social benefits.[1]
Though one book I saw claims this was actually higher than the prevailing wages they earned at home and they got enough to send home remittances to family:
The deficiency in net earnings of central and eastern European forced labourers (versus forced labourers from western countries) is illustrated by the wage savings forced labourers were able to transfer to their families at home or abroad (see table).

As to what the situation was as of summer 1944:
In the late summer of 1944, German records listed 7.6 million foreign civilian workers and prisoners of war in the German territory, most of whom had been brought there by coercion.[15]

PoWs go home, some of the laborers, especially from Western Europe were there willingly given the decent wages they got and could send home, as well as social amenities not available back home, so could choose to stay as many had been there pre-war (Dutch, Italian, etc.), while many in Poland, though not willingly in Germany, might want to stay post-war given the economic situation in Poland, while those from occupied Russia and Ukraine might have serious thoughts about going home if home is under Stalin. A lot of ex-Soviet PoWs, despite the horror of German prison camps, still resisted going home.

So yeah, the Nazis were really bad, but let's not completely exaggerate how bad they could have been.

Notice the mismatch here? 1st paragraph your talking about people not knowing about German plans to kill other groups - although most of the deaths might be from massive abuse rather than actual gassing. 2nd your saying "we weren't talking about what people knew at the time.
The second comment was related to a comment you made, the first also related to another comment you made. They weren't connected to anything I was saying, they were separate comments about separate comments you made. So they aren't connected, you're just trying to create a 'gotcha' where it doesn't exist.

Again the Chinese deaths might well happen anyway. Plus while Stalin's forces rounded up people related to former democratic elements or the assorted pro-German regimes they didn't kill or enslave wholesale as the Nazis did. Murderously brutal but a totally different level than the Nazis with their racially inspired insanity.
Sure. The KMT were no angels and would have done some pretty awful things against people connected to the CCP, as limited a group as that was. However that would be related to the Civil War of 1945-49 deaths (which I'm assuming would be the same ITTL just against different people) rather than things like the 'Great Leap Forward' and 'Cultural Revolution' which was entirely do to Mao's economic policies and social engineering.

Oh the Soviets didn't round up civilians wholesale for slave labor?
A study of German forced labor and expulsions by the West German researcher Dr. Gerhard Reichling was published by the Kulturstiftung der deutschen Vertriebenen (Foundation of the German Expellees) in 1986. Reichling was an employee of the Federal Statistical Office who was involved in the study of German expulsion statistics since 1953. Reichling's figures for German forced labor were based on his own calculations, his figures are estimates and are not based on an actual enumeration of the dead. Dr. Kurt Horstmann of the Federal Statistical Office of Germany wrote the foreword to the study, endorsing the work of Reichling.

DescriptionDeportedDeaths
Germany (1937 Borders)400,000160,000
Poland (1939 Borders)112,00040,000
Danzig10,0005,000
Czechoslovakia30,0004,000
Baltic States19,0008,000
Hungary30,00010,000
Romania89,00033,000
Yugoslavia40,00010,000
USSR980,000310,000
Total1,710,000580,000
Forced labour was also included in the Morgenthau Plan draft from September 1944, and was included in the final protocol of the Yalta conference.[50] The Soviet Union and the western allies employed German POW labor up until 1949.

German POWs were impressed into forced labor during and after World War II by the Soviet Union. Based on documents in the Russian archives Grigori F. Krivosheev in his 1993 study listed 2,389,600 German nationals taken as POWs and the deaths of 450,600 these German POWs including 356,700 in NKVD camps and 93,900 in transit. In addition he listed 182,000 Austrians taken prisoner[51][52] In his revised 2001 edition Krivosheev put the number of German military POWs (Wehrmacht of all nationalities) at 2,733,739 and dead at 381,067 [53] These figures are disputed by sources in the west that give a higher number of POWs captured and estimate losses may be higher than those reported by the USSR. Richard Overy in The Dictators: Hitler's Germany and Stalin's Russia puts total number of German POWs captured by the USSR at 2,880,000 of whom 356,000 died.[54] However, in his Russia's War Richard Overy maintains that according to Rurrian sources 356,000 out of 2,388,000 POWs died in Soviet captivity.[55]

A research project by German military historian Rüdiger Overmans stated that 363,000 German POWs died in Soviet custody; Overmans cited the statistics of the West German Maschke commission that put the number of German POWs taken by the Soviets at 3,060,000, of whom 1,090,000 died in captivity.[56][57] Overmans also believed it was possible, although not provable, that 700,000 German military personnel reported missing actually died in Soviet custody;[58] Overmans estimates the "maximum" death toll of German POWs in the USSR at 1.0 million, he maintains that among those reported as missing were men who actually died as POWs.[59]
Some PoWs were held until 1955.

While exact numbers are not known, it is estimated that up to 600,000 Hungarians were deported, including an estimated 200,000 civilians. An estimated 200,000 perished.[1] Hungarian forced labor was part of a larger system of foreign forced labor in the Soviet Union.

And forced labor in the USSR in general:

As to other mass atrocities of the USSR:
The demographic consequences of this eviction were catastrophic and far reaching: of the 496,000 Chechens and Ingush who were deported (according to Soviet archives; Chechen sources put the deportees at 650,000[1]), at least a quarter perished. In total, the archive records show that over a hundred thousand people died or were killed during the round-ups and transportation, and during their early years in exile in the Kazakh and Kyrgyz SSR as well as Russian SFSR where they were sent to the many forced settlements. Chechen sources claim that 400,000 died, while presuming a higher number of deportees.[1] A higher percentage of Chechens were killed than any other ethnic group persecuted by population transfer in the Soviet Union.[4]


The jokes you mention were about killing about 100k of the German officer corp to permanent remove the threat of German militarism. Totally agree with Churchill about this but a different level to killing 10's of millions.
It was a point to show the mentality of the people talking, especially given other comments by FDR, including how he told Stalin at Yalta about how 'blood thirsty' he had become. It was known the Morgenthau plan would likely result in the deaths of millions, but he endorsed it anyway and had Morgenthau leverage financial aid for the British to get Churchill to sign on to it:
Some have read into the clause "from whom we had much to ask" that Churchill was bought off, and note a September 15 memo from Roosevelt to Hull stating that "Morgenthau has presented at Quebec, in conjunction with his plan for Germany, a proposal of credits to Britain totalling six and half billion dollars." Hull's comment on this was that "this might suggest to some the quid pro quo with which the Secretary of the Treasury was able to get Mr. Churchill's adherence to his cataclysmic plan for Germany".[20]

At Quebec, White made sure that Lord Cherwell understood that economic aid to Britain was dependent on British approval of the plan. During the signing of the plan, which coincided with the signing of a loan agreement, President Roosevelt proposed that they sign the plan first. This prompted Churchill to exclaim: "What do you want me to do? Get on my hind legs and beg like Fala?"[21]

Leaving aside the idiotic BS what was the likelihood of such a coup succeeding when Hitler seemed to many in Germany at the height of his success? Especially since your talking of giving up all German territorial gains - possibly as far back as the annexation of Austria - and still have unconditional surrender which would mean that the allies would occupy Germany and be able pretty much to do what they liked.
In 1943? He was at the nadir of his success to that point (after Stalingrad) and losing even worse. The German general staff had turned on him after Stalingrad and were supportive of the coup if FDR eased up on unconditional surrender. Yes and I provided sources for that earlier, including FDR's special representative's interview on the subject (one of several sources used in the book I linked as well).

Not to mention how many forces did the allies have in the European theatre at this point? Your talking about occupying and maintaining order over a massive area, disarming millions of Germans and other fascist forces and deterring a Soviet attack when the latter have massively more forces that the allies do.
In mid-1943? Several million. Anti-Nazi Germans in the German officer corps were willing to accept orders from the Wallies if Stalin was kept out of Central Europe. Again all in the sources and from an American agent who actually negotiated the deal.
The Germans were to be used to keep the Soviets at bay, the Wallied forces to occupy Germany and their airpower to be a threat to keep Stalin from doing anything stupid. Plus of course Stalin would get back his 1939 border. The Poles and other occupied peoples would help as well, who would be more than happy to work with the Americans and Brits over the Germans. Even the ex-Axis allies would be more than happy to switch sides against the Germans if it meant no Stalin.

Except as you say the Soviets have avoided massive casualties themselves, gained a lot of territory, population and resources and the Germans are a much weaker force as their given up a lot of territory and resources and any new aggression from them would mean war with both the Soviets and the western powers. Which would be fatal if the German withdraw includes France let alone other parts of western Europe. Yes there would be isolated unrest in some areas but their likely to be reduced to minor guerilla activity which as with the forest brothers in OTL is likely to ultimately alienate their own people.
Yet 20 years after WW2 West Germany had a larger economy than the USSR (real numbers, not 'official' ones. A less bled out Germany is stronger than a less bled out USSR that doesn't get to loot Europe and Asia. Germany wouldn't have to withdraw from France if they actually defeat the invasion. Even if they did withdraw Germany is hardly economically crippled despite the bombing if it avoids the bulk of the 1 million irrecoverable losses of 1944, gets back PoWs, and of course avoids the millions of deaths of 1945 and all losses from 1945-49. Actually leaving would benefit them because of the reduction of occupation costs and manpower needs to occupy and fight guerrillas in the west.

Certainly the Soviets would win the guerrilla wars they faced after WW2 just as they did IOTL, but it would likely be a lot more costly if the Germans/Axis support said guerrillas and give them ways in and out of the zones of conflict for rest and training.

If Stalin is involved in the Pacific war its probably because the US wants him to, as OTL, which means that L-L would be resumed/continued. Plus a guard force in the west is going to need a hell of a lot less man and resources than fighting the Germans all the way to Berlin and occupying most of the Balkans.
Want them to is meaningless unless they have the ability. Being stuck at a border east of their 1939 one would be a pretty serious political and economic blow given the casualties and economic losses they had taken until then and wouldn't recoup any losses from Central Europe or extended LL into 1945. If the war in Europe ends so does the bulk of LL. Perhaps more would be offered if the Soviets opt to to fight in Asia, but remember they still have the partisan problem themselves in Europe, a huge frontier to garrison, major economic and population losses that aren't necessarily going to be returned and potential civil unrest from ending the war early.

I'm not assuming they work any better than OTL. Just that everything doesn't work perfectly for the Germans. The situation on Omaha was costly for a while in part because of allied mistakes but elsewhere there was no danger of the allies being thrown back into the sea. Even if all the forces your assuming are in place in Normandy its going to be a lot tighter but the allies are still likely to win. Plus since the allies are likely to know about at least some of the German reinforcements their going to react differently. You could see a lot more bombing operations, especially the heavies despite what Harris and his US equivalent - forgetting his name at the moment :( - wanted.
Well IOTL they failed to stop the 21st Panzer division from reaching the beaches and staying there as well as continuing to fight out the whole campaign.

IOTL you're right about Omaha being the only potential failure point (a pretty serious one if it had though), but we're talking about an ATL where there is an entire full strength SS Panzer corps there that was missing IOTL, plus several more infantry divisions as well as numerous StuG brigades and a Tiger brigade to support the regular army. And let's not forget the massive diversion of equipment to Ukraine to make up for the loss of not just the entire 1st Panzer army's equipment, but numerous other divisions in the series of disasters in Winter-Spring 1944 in the region. Most of that was earmarked for the West, but was not available. Zetterling's Normandy book really covers just how ill equipped most of the German divisions in Normandy were and in fact a big reason many survived to fight on in late 1944-1945 was they were still being rehabilitated outside of France either from the disasters in Ukraine or just not getting replacements for months when Falaise happened.

Seriously the loss of the SS Panzer corps was fatal the more I find about it. They were right where the fake paradrop was IOTL so they wouldn't have been diverted by it like 12th SS was, their command positioned them close to the sea unlike the 12th SS which took their spot when they transferred to Ukraine to rescue the situation there, and the 12th SS I found out was supposed to have been moved to the Cotentin Peninsula when they were instead sent to replace the entire II SS Panzer Corps southwest of Caen. So had the II SS Panzer Corps been present not only would they have been able to rapidly attack the 6th airborne the morning of June 6th and overrun it as well as Sword beach, potentially carrying on to Juno, 21st Panzer would have been sent to Juno as part of the II SS Panzer corps, while 12th SS would have been right near Utah beach and near the drop zones of the US airborne divisions. That particular division was full strength, well trained, and highly vicious, so would likely massacre the US airborne troops that drop on or near them and really screw up the ability of the Americans to move off the beaches and cut off the peninsula.

The point of the paper I initially linked was that the entire Normandy defense was crippled due to having to repair the damage in the East. I'm increasingly convinced the more I find about the subject that the invasion would have failed had the planned divisions and equipment actually been in place. So the Red Army really did enable Wallied success that summer.

What more bombing could the Allies do? They didn't have extra bombers sitting idle and were trying to hit all the divisions present anyway. Having more to hit would just dilute their bombing, which really didn't negatively impact them prior to the invasion of even in the early hours.

Apart from other factors I've mentioned this is the same Hitler who is now out of the loop so Goring or whoever is in charge could have a totally different viewpoint. As such far from certain that those forces will be anywhere near the position your suggested. If in this circumstance the general staff back the far more influential Rundstedt rather than Rommel then all/most of the German armoured/mechanised forces could be in the Paris region for a massed counter attack with virtually none in the immediate vicinity of the beaches as you suggest. In which case there might be a more powerful counter attack a day or so down the line but its going to meet the prepared defences and massed firepower you suggested would be avoided.

That's just one butterfly that could occur.
Hitler didn't position the divisions, Rommel did (commander of 7th and 15th armies). I'll give you the 12th SS division in Cotentin though, that was Hitler idea. At worst they're in Flanders (where they were in April) and have to transit to the beaches later on.

Honestly I could see Goering splitting the difference like Hitler did and giving Rommel and Rundstedt each have of the panzer divisions, which still leaves the II SS Panzer corps right where they were. After all Rommel, though he got much of his influence from Hitler, still was a Field Marshall in charge of defenses and was still one of the most publicly popular and influential generals in Germany (he was very good at playing the media and his relations with politicians). Also Rundstedt got Rommel appointed as a commander (upgrade from 'inspector of defenses') in early January 1944, so despite their disagreements he was supportive of Rommel. Without a doubt Rommel would be immediately working Goering to get his favor, which Goering probably would respond to given his vanity and preference for younger officers he viewed as more pliable than the old guard Prussians. In fact Rommel even started getting Rundstedt's support through endless lobbying:
Although Rommel was the dominating personality in Normandy with Rundstedt willing to delegate most of the responsibilities to him (the central reserve was Rundstedt's idea but he did not oppose to some form of coastal defense, and gradually came under the influence of Rommel's thinking), Rommel's strategy of an armor-supported coastal defense line was opposed by some officers, most notably Leo Geyr von Schweppenburg, who was supported by Guderian.[232][217][233][234][221][235] Hitler compromised and gave Rommel three divisions (the 2nd, the 21st and the 116th Panzer), let Rundstedt retain four and turned the other three to Army Group G, pleasing no one.[236]
Given Rommel's personality and his influence with Rundstedt I'd excepted a similar result, especially as Goering was no where near as stubborn as Hitler.
 

stevep

Well-known member
Making peace in 1944 is a mistake but starting a nuclear Third World War isn't? Destroying countless cities and killing tens of millions is somehow better? Likewise, there is absolutely no appetite in the United States for such a war:

wWpJZxBq_o.jpeg

I think a limited nuclear war saving tens of millions of lives would be a better result than what's being suggested.

That there is a lot of anti-Semitic bigotry in the US in this period doesn't change much. There are a hell of a lot of Poles and other Slavs, as well as liberals from western Europe and Germany who have fled the Nazis who are likely to be very worried about the plight of the people deserted to Nazi rule. When nukes give the opportunity to change that there would be a strong argument both moral and strategic to use them.

Most likely end result is none of the above, with a three way Cold War developing because Nazi Germany either directly or indirectly controls the bigger economy than UK or USSR and has the means of quickly developing its own nuclear devices combined with the ability to use them via the V-2 system or HE-177.

Germany may have a bigger economy than the USSR, at least until its policies destroy it and will have a larger economy than the UK - although in both cases less efficient. However Germany doesn't have the access to nuclear knowledge that the UK - or the Soviets due to their spies. Plus it has ideological problems with developing nukes, as well as the massive incompetence the Nazi system produced. Its the only chance for Britain to secure its independence if not gain a larger level of security so expect it to be a very high priority for Britain. Less desperate but equally useful for the Soviets.

As such its highly unlikely that Nazi Germany would get nuclear weapons before either of the other powers. Britain is likely to use nukes if they get them before the Nazis. I can't see Stalin not doing so and assuming the Pacific war doesn't diverge totally from OTL he's going to have B-29's to copy as OTL.

Okay, so no internal power struggle because Goering is the figurehead leader with Hitler's explicit blessing and has the backing of the Army. Nobody is going to be making moves against the new regime in that context because if the Army doesn't remove you on their own, they have to consider how Hitler will react to his standing orders not being followed when/if he recovers.

There will be no power struggle, Goering is the legal heir and has the backing of the Wehrmacht.

That's a possibility if Hitler looks like he might recover and fear of that means that rivals to Goring daren't oppose him. As I pointed out that doesn't mean he will give the same priority to France as Hitler insisted on and he still won't have the same prestige as Hitler. Furthermore he's quite capable of making errors of his own.

If/when it looks like Hitler won't survive/recover then the power struggle will begin, although how open it would be I don't know. By 44 Goring has made a lot of enemies and blotted his copybook a number of times while a lot of other characters would simply want the top slot.

And they showed that displeasure by not extending lend lease until November of 1941, very late into Operation Barbarossa and as Moscow itself was under threat. If Stalin derails their war effort, they have exactly zero reason to support him in anything because he will appear to be an ally of Hitler again.

That is very late into the initial campaign but not necessarily due to immediate political displeasure. It takes time to agree such deals, especially with nations such as the USA and USSR.

Since Stalin is doing exactly what your assuming the US President will do that last statement is on rather dubious ground. ;)

Not to mention that if there are poor relations between the US and Soviets and the US does look like its going to take Japan out then Stalin has a big incentive to gain a secure position in the region to keep the US at a distance. As such even without US encouragement there is a clear possibility for such an invasion of Japanese controlled areas.


I don't think Japan will outlast the U.S. in this scenario because the ETO of 1944-1945 has been avoided.

Which makes what difference?
a) The US has already set a precedent by cutting and running in Europe.
b) This TL might mean that the US has less time to do heavy damage to Japan before any invasion attempt. As such losses in that are likely to be heavier and hence the quit in the Pacific is more likely than you have assumed elsewhere.
c) This is doubly so if the US and USSR are openly alienated from each other as Japan is going to be even less concerned about a Soviet attack than they were OTL.

Specific to the issue of China, Mao coming into power was rather contingent on the Soviets occupying Manchuria and thus granting him a base from which to form and train cadres with loads of captured Japanese and gifted Soviet weapons, none of which exists here. Up to 1946, the KMT was winning and the turning point came with their failed effort to overrun Manchuria which ended in disaster; none of that is applicable here.

Even if we assume what you say about the Soviet action being vital is accurate then as I point out its still a clear possibility in TTL.
 

stevep

Well-known member
Sorry, real life got busy again and I haven't had time to respond yet.


I'm talking about all deaths from all causes, including soldiers during the war. Seeing as they were drafted civilians especially by later in the war I count them as victims of the war.

As to what killing the Nazis would do had they managed to hold the line and defeat the invasion of France...I'm not really sure how much killing they would continue to do after the war without Hitler in charge. He was the singular driving force behind killing the Jews, which Goering, an awful human being generally, did not pursue other than to maintain his position with Hitler. I'm getting that from Richard Overy's biography of him. Himmler would be a genocidal maniac, but not in charge here, nor was he at all popular with the public and would never rise above his station...which would remain much more limited without the worsening of the war situation and without the assassination attempt on Hitler.

In fact post war the Nazis might well be toppled given how the public really only liked Hitler and even then largely only until Stalingrad. He had his hard core of support, but that eroded the longer the war went on. Not that that would matter much in a world where Hitler is incapacitated and unable to resume his position. Even had Hitler remained in power other than completing the genocide of the Jews there really was no other large group of people that he could mass murder in peace time. Arguably the Holocaust was only possible given the war situation and without the context of the war being lost there was no way to really even carry out things like the 'germanization' of Poland and Czechoslovakia. As it was colonization efforts of the General Government in Poland was a massive failure due to resistance of the Poles and in Ukraine the UPA was not to be trifled with and in fact they were already heading toward ally status with the creation of the Ukrainian SS division. Same with the Baltic states, which had already had multiple divisions fighting for the Germans.


The population was fed up and sick of the Nazis by 1942 other than their hard core of support and resistance activities were picking up tremendously from 1942-43 before FDR dashed their hopes for a peace deal by rejecting the repeated offers through any channel. They still went ahead anyway in July and after the failure of that and the subsequent purge of the Resistance is then what largely eliminated resistance to the Nazis within Germany. Still even then there were figures who had gone to ground or were off the radar so to speak who could still organize resistance, especially if the army and public were sick enough of the Nazis to revolt. After all that is what it took to get rid of the Soviets in the 1990s despite how firmly entrenched that regime was.

The Resistance actually did not think they could maintain any gains and actually through Canaris offered total capitulation to the Wallies with the only caveat was the Soviets were not allowed into Central Europe. They hoped they could maintain some territorial gains, but did not even ask that of the Allies when they offered to coup Hitler and then surrender.
This book has a ton of details on the offer:


Here is an interview with Earle, the US agent who handled the contact with the Resistance:
As he says the offer had only a single string attached: keep the Soviets out of Central Europe and the Wallies had immediate and unconditional surrender otherwise.

I'm not sure you could really call Horthy a Fascist, definitely not with the king of Romania or Bulgaria. Yugoslavia would have been recreated under the king. Poland would have been recreated too under the government in exile in London. The Baltic states could be recreated as well with new democratic governments if desired. Finland just wanted it's 1939 border back, so wasn't really a fascist state either.

A peace deal in 1944 would leave the Soviets probably at their 1941 border at best and frankly no one would be in any position to demand more, either FDR, Churchill, or Stalin.


Unconditional surrender and the bombing campaign already made them assume the worst, the Morgenthau plan simply underlined the point. It wasn't like there wasn't propaganda material being circulated in the US at the time that was along the same thought lines anyway:
!

Plus there was apparently a German spy in the VP Wallace's entourage that was only uncovered when Fritz Kolbe started delivering intel to Allen Dulles in Switzerland in 1944, so it could have been known about during the draft stage.

Oh I'm well aware of FDR's thinking on the matter, there are several good books on the subject of the Morgenthau Plan and Unconditional Surrender, including the influence of a Soviet agent in the Treasury Department in creating it.


Hungary was not part of the Reich and states not directly under the control of Hitler successfully resisted requests to turn over their Jews. See Denmark, Vichy France (until they were taken over by the Nazis directly), Hungary, and Romania (who had their own separate Holocaust, the only other state in Europe to do so). There really wasn't much Hitler could do given he relied heavily on Hungarian troops to help defend Ukraine, so Hitler needed the Hungarians and their industry more than they needed him, especially given their oil resources among other vital raw materials.


Given that despite the war the vast majority were never enslaved, it simply isn't going to be possible given how many men Germany has lost and how many men would be needed to stay in the armed forces to maintain the new expanded empire.
Don't forget too that throughout the course of the Nazi force labor program about 12 million people were involved out of an occupied population of well over 200 million. Even then they weren't preferred but were the only option available with German soldiers fighting and dying in their millions. Though the Ostarbeiter and Poles were actually paid for their labor:

Though one book I saw claims this was actually higher than the prevailing wages they earned at home and they got enough to send home remittances to family:


As to what the situation was as of summer 1944:


PoWs go home, some of the laborers, especially from Western Europe were there willingly given the decent wages they got and could send home, as well as social amenities not available back home, so could choose to stay as many had been there pre-war (Dutch, Italian, etc.), while many in Poland, though not willingly in Germany, might want to stay post-war given the economic situation in Poland, while those from occupied Russia and Ukraine might have serious thoughts about going home if home is under Stalin. A lot of ex-Soviet PoWs, despite the horror of German prison camps, still resisted going home.

So yeah, the Nazis were really bad, but let's not completely exaggerate how bad they could have been.


The second comment was related to a comment you made, the first also related to another comment you made. They weren't connected to anything I was saying, they were separate comments about separate comments you made. So they aren't connected, you're just trying to create a 'gotcha' where it doesn't exist.


Sure. The KMT were no angels and would have done some pretty awful things against people connected to the CCP, as limited a group as that was. However that would be related to the Civil War of 1945-49 deaths (which I'm assuming would be the same ITTL just against different people) rather than things like the 'Great Leap Forward' and 'Cultural Revolution' which was entirely do to Mao's economic policies and social engineering.

Oh the Soviets didn't round up civilians wholesale for slave labor?


Some PoWs were held until 1955.



And forced labor in the USSR in general:

As to other mass atrocities of the USSR:




It was a point to show the mentality of the people talking, especially given other comments by FDR, including how he told Stalin at Yalta about how 'blood thirsty' he had become. It was known the Morgenthau plan would likely result in the deaths of millions, but he endorsed it anyway and had Morgenthau leverage financial aid for the British to get Churchill to sign on to it:



In 1943? He was at the nadir of his success to that point (after Stalingrad) and losing even worse. The German general staff had turned on him after Stalingrad and were supportive of the coup if FDR eased up on unconditional surrender. Yes and I provided sources for that earlier, including FDR's special representative's interview on the subject (one of several sources used in the book I linked as well).


In mid-1943? Several million. Anti-Nazi Germans in the German officer corps were willing to accept orders from the Wallies if Stalin was kept out of Central Europe. Again all in the sources and from an American agent who actually negotiated the deal.
The Germans were to be used to keep the Soviets at bay, the Wallied forces to occupy Germany and their airpower to be a threat to keep Stalin from doing anything stupid. Plus of course Stalin would get back his 1939 border. The Poles and other occupied peoples would help as well, who would be more than happy to work with the Americans and Brits over the Germans. Even the ex-Axis allies would be more than happy to switch sides against the Germans if it meant no Stalin.


Yet 20 years after WW2 West Germany had a larger economy than the USSR (real numbers, not 'official' ones. A less bled out Germany is stronger than a less bled out USSR that doesn't get to loot Europe and Asia. Germany wouldn't have to withdraw from France if they actually defeat the invasion. Even if they did withdraw Germany is hardly economically crippled despite the bombing if it avoids the bulk of the 1 million irrecoverable losses of 1944, gets back PoWs, and of course avoids the millions of deaths of 1945 and all losses from 1945-49. Actually leaving would benefit them because of the reduction of occupation costs and manpower needs to occupy and fight guerrillas in the west.

Certainly the Soviets would win the guerrilla wars they faced after WW2 just as they did IOTL, but it would likely be a lot more costly if the Germans/Axis support said guerrillas and give them ways in and out of the zones of conflict for rest and training.


Want them to is meaningless unless they have the ability. Being stuck at a border east of their 1939 one would be a pretty serious political and economic blow given the casualties and economic losses they had taken until then and wouldn't recoup any losses from Central Europe or extended LL into 1945. If the war in Europe ends so does the bulk of LL. Perhaps more would be offered if the Soviets opt to to fight in Asia, but remember they still have the partisan problem themselves in Europe, a huge frontier to garrison, major economic and population losses that aren't necessarily going to be returned and potential civil unrest from ending the war early.


Well IOTL they failed to stop the 21st Panzer division from reaching the beaches and staying there as well as continuing to fight out the whole campaign.

IOTL you're right about Omaha being the only potential failure point (a pretty serious one if it had though), but we're talking about an ATL where there is an entire full strength SS Panzer corps there that was missing IOTL, plus several more infantry divisions as well as numerous StuG brigades and a Tiger brigade to support the regular army. And let's not forget the massive diversion of equipment to Ukraine to make up for the loss of not just the entire 1st Panzer army's equipment, but numerous other divisions in the series of disasters in Winter-Spring 1944 in the region. Most of that was earmarked for the West, but was not available. Zetterling's Normandy book really covers just how ill equipped most of the German divisions in Normandy were and in fact a big reason many survived to fight on in late 1944-1945 was they were still being rehabilitated outside of France either from the disasters in Ukraine or just not getting replacements for months when Falaise happened.

Seriously the loss of the SS Panzer corps was fatal the more I find about it. They were right where the fake paradrop was IOTL so they wouldn't have been diverted by it like 12th SS was, their command positioned them close to the sea unlike the 12th SS which took their spot when they transferred to Ukraine to rescue the situation there, and the 12th SS I found out was supposed to have been moved to the Cotentin Peninsula when they were instead sent to replace the entire II SS Panzer Corps southwest of Caen. So had the II SS Panzer Corps been present not only would they have been able to rapidly attack the 6th airborne the morning of June 6th and overrun it as well as Sword beach, potentially carrying on to Juno, 21st Panzer would have been sent to Juno as part of the II SS Panzer corps, while 12th SS would have been right near Utah beach and near the drop zones of the US airborne divisions. That particular division was full strength, well trained, and highly vicious, so would likely massacre the US airborne troops that drop on or near them and really screw up the ability of the Americans to move off the beaches and cut off the peninsula.

The point of the paper I initially linked was that the entire Normandy defense was crippled due to having to repair the damage in the East. I'm increasingly convinced the more I find about the subject that the invasion would have failed had the planned divisions and equipment actually been in place. So the Red Army really did enable Wallied success that summer.

What more bombing could the Allies do? They didn't have extra bombers sitting idle and were trying to hit all the divisions present anyway. Having more to hit would just dilute their bombing, which really didn't negatively impact them prior to the invasion of even in the early hours.


Hitler didn't position the divisions, Rommel did (commander of 7th and 15th armies). I'll give you the 12th SS division in Cotentin though, that was Hitler idea. At worst they're in Flanders (where they were in April) and have to transit to the beaches later on.

Honestly I could see Goering splitting the difference like Hitler did and giving Rommel and Rundstedt each have of the panzer divisions, which still leaves the II SS Panzer corps right where they were. After all Rommel, though he got much of his influence from Hitler, still was a Field Marshall in charge of defenses and was still one of the most publicly popular and influential generals in Germany (he was very good at playing the media and his relations with politicians). Also Rundstedt got Rommel appointed as a commander (upgrade from 'inspector of defenses') in early January 1944, so despite their disagreements he was supportive of Rommel. Without a doubt Rommel would be immediately working Goering to get his favor, which Goering probably would respond to given his vanity and preference for younger officers he viewed as more pliable than the old guard Prussians. In fact Rommel even started getting Rundstedt's support through endless lobbying:

Given Rommel's personality and his influence with Rundstedt I'd excepted a similar result, especially as Goering was no where near as stubborn as Hitler.


Well since their entire system depended on widespread looting to stay in anything like balance and it was based on endemic and rabid racism a hell of a lot. It will still need a lot of people to devour and with tens of millions of Slavs especially but possibly others there's a lot of them to get through before it collapsed.

The massive plans for 'settling the east' weren't really practical, in part because of the size of the commitment and also because few if any Germans wanted to become isolated pockets of settlement among a sea of Slavs who would be massively hostile to them and with in most cases a hostile climate. However moving Germans into Poland and then probably later Bohemia as the local population was consumed by the demand for slave labour is a different issue. Especially since with a much smaller area and population well within the reach of German power and heavily occupied even isolated examples of resistance are going to be quickly crushed.

The fact that the USSR was a brutal system is less important than that, even at its worst under Lenin and Stalin it wasn't as bit-shit insane as Nazi Germany. Nor was it based on ethnicity to anything like the same degree, although there was a clear bias towards 'Great Russians'. However other groups were to be ruled not enslaved or exterminated. OTL the death rates from both regimes might have been comparable but then the USSR ruled a much larger population for ~70 years rather than a smaller one for ~12 years.

Hitler did decide what units went were, most famously in the split of forces between Rommel's preferred forward defence and Rundstedt's strategic reserve further back so its likely that a larger force would be split in a similar factor if Hitler was still in charge. Here he's not so what gets decided could be totally different in any number of ways.

That post-war Germany, boosted by western aid and a full part of the western economic system prospered so much doesn't mean that a longer lasting Nazi German would do so. Given their economic policies and continued corruption and infighting let alone their ethnic policies its extremely unlikely they would do so.

Possibly things would be better for the world if Canaris could deliver on his offer - which I doubt - and that the German army would be prepared to disarm - which I also rather doubt - and Germany would be willing to submit to democratic reform and reparaition to its victims for the last ~5 years of brutal suffering - which I doubt as well. If you don't have the latter step you not only have a deeply immoral outcome but Germany surrounded by nations which have every reason to hate it, which isn't going to be good for Germany or the west as a whole.
 

History Learner

Well-known member
I think a limited nuclear war saving tens of millions of lives would be a better result than what's being suggested.

"To save millions of lives, supposedly, we're going to destroy multiple cities filled with millions of people who will be killed in atomic fire."

This makes exactly zero sense from any sort of ethical perspective. Because the Germans are oppressing millions of Slavs and Jews, we're going to kill millions of Germans, Slavs and others either directly through atomic blasts or indirectly through fallout, the collapse of the food infrastructure, etc.

That there is a lot of anti-Semitic bigotry in the US in this period doesn't change much. There are a hell of a lot of Poles and other Slavs, as well as liberals from western Europe and Germany who have fled the Nazis who are likely to be very worried about the plight of the people deserted to Nazi rule. When nukes give the opportunity to change that there would be a strong argument both moral and strategic to use them.

And none of these interest groups combined compose a majority, nor were they able to force the United States to exercise the nuclear option against the USSR from 1945-1949 when the possibility of such existed. There is exactly zero reason to assume this would happen, based on the polling we have; throughout the war it was consistently found most Americans did not view Germans in a negative light and did overall care about the atrocities they were known of. You're attempting to project modern opinions onto the 1940s, when such didn't exist at all.

Germany may have a bigger economy than the USSR, at least until its policies destroy it and will have a larger economy than the UK - although in both cases less efficient. However Germany doesn't have the access to nuclear knowledge that the UK - or the Soviets due to their spies. Plus it has ideological problems with developing nukes, as well as the massive incompetence the Nazi system produced. Its the only chance for Britain to secure its independence if not gain a larger level of security so expect it to be a very high priority for Britain. Less desperate but equally useful for the Soviets.

Actually, the Germany economy was increasingly pulling ahead of the USSR even in 1944 in all respects and had already surpassed the UK in GDP and other critical factors; most of the inefficiency theory has been debunked for sometime now in the sense you are staking the case. As it were for the nuclear question, the Germans had no ideological problems at all with nuclear weapons; that's a complete myth. Until 1941, they were at worst equal to the Allies if not ahead, it's only in the 1941-1942 timeframe that they lost their advantage. Most tellingly, the captured German scientists at Farm Hill IOTL 1945 were able to figure out how the American did within a matter of days in August of 1945; they will definitely do so here and Germany has all the resources it needs to build a nuclear weapon.

Fun Fact: Bohemia and East Germany were the main source of inputs for the Soviet atomic bomb project.

As such its highly unlikely that Nazi Germany would get nuclear weapons before either of the other powers. Britain is likely to use nukes if they get them before the Nazis. I can't see Stalin not doing so and assuming the Pacific war doesn't diverge totally from OTL he's going to have B-29's to copy as OTL.

The Soviets will likely be latter than OTL and the British will be lucky to get them on time; how exactly are they supposed to have the resources for an atomic project if they are staying militarized? If they aren't, why would they use weapons if they can't take advantage of it in the aftermath? Do you really suppose Washington would let London be sufficiently stupid enough to gift the continent to Stalin?

That's a possibility if Hitler looks like he might recover and fear of that means that rivals to Goring daren't oppose him. As I pointed out that doesn't mean he will give the same priority to France as Hitler insisted on and he still won't have the same prestige as Hitler. Furthermore he's quite capable of making errors of his own.

He doesn't need the same prestige as Hitler when he is the legal successor and has the backing of the State and Army.

If/when it looks like Hitler won't survive/recover then the power struggle will begin, although how open it would be I don't know. By 44 Goring has made a lot of enemies and blotted his copybook a number of times while a lot of other characters would simply want the top slot.

Outside of the Anti-Nazi Army elements, there are no other power players. The Army detested Himmler, while Goebbels and Bormann have no real power bases to contest Goering's absolute control of the Luftwaffe for example.

That is very late into the initial campaign but not necessarily due to immediate political displeasure. It takes time to agree such deals, especially with nations such as the USA and USSR.

No, it was precisely due to lingering Anti-Communism and other factors. Efforts to get it through Congress earlier in 1941 had failed.

Since Stalin is doing exactly what your assuming the US President will do that last statement is on rather dubious ground. ;)

Not to mention that if there are poor relations between the US and Soviets and the US does look like its going to take Japan out then Stalin has a big incentive to gain a secure position in the region to keep the US at a distance. As such even without US encouragement there is a clear possibility for such an invasion of Japanese controlled areas.

Stalin can certainly try, the problem is his troops run out of food and ammunition a day or so in and the 750,000 IJA soldiers in Manchuria promptly eject them. 6th Guards Tank Army was meant to be the main force of the Soviet offensive and it was out of fuel by August 15th even with the extensive American logistical support provided to the Soviets.

Which makes what difference?

The lack of 500,000 U.S. casualties between June, 1944 and May, 1945. I'd suggest reading Hell To Pay, which goes over this extensively in terms of the impact this had on American military leadership.

a) The US has already set a precedent by cutting and running in Europe.

The war against Japan was overall much more popular than the war in Europe and you've avoided the exhaustion the war in Europe provoked.
b) This TL might mean that the US has less time to do heavy damage to Japan before any invasion attempt. As such losses in that are likely to be heavier and hence the quit in the Pacific is more likely than you have assumed elsewhere.

Why? If we are assuming the war in Europe ends sometime in 1944, there isn't enough time to move up the timeframe of the invasion of Japan significantly. You still need to clear out the Marianas, Iwo Jima and Okinawa before attempting anything, which will take sometime.

c) This is doubly so if the US and USSR are openly alienated from each other as Japan is going to be even less concerned about a Soviet attack than they were OTL.

Basically OTL, at the strategic level the Japanese weren't expecting the Soviet entry that early.

Even if we assume what you say about the Soviet action being vital is accurate then as I point out its still a clear possibility in TTL.

The atomic bombings of Japan motivating the Emperor to seek peace is what was decisive, not the Soviet invasion. However, there will definitely not be a successful invasion here because the Soviets do not have the logistics to support such.
 

sillygoose

Well-known member
I think a limited nuclear war saving tens of millions of lives would be a better result than what's being suggested.
How do you have a 'limited' nuclear war that saves millions of lives? Chemical and bio weapons exist even if the Nazis don't have nukes for a while, plus they have jet aircraft that AAA can't touch due to the speed and don't have a SAM program in the 1950s. The first viable one, which used captured German research, wasn't available until the 1950s.
And that doesn't get into the V-2 (or larger versions) being uninterceptable and capable of fitting a proximity fuse as well as being fitted with dirty bomb material. Nuclear war won't be limited and it won't save lives, just kill LOTS more people.

Well since their entire system depended on widespread looting to stay in anything like balance and it was based on endemic and rabid racism a hell of a lot. It will still need a lot of people to devour and with tens of millions of Slavs especially but possibly others there's a lot of them to get through before it collapsed.
Oh, so just like the British empire or to some degree even the US. You should read what the Americans in India in the 1940s thought of the British system of racial hierarchy there. Or read the history of US exploitation of Latin America. Among other 'activities' in US history.

Unfortunately the Allies were quite racist and economical predicated on a history of brutal exploitation of any number of peoples around the world too. Focusing on Nazi Germany in exclusion to the reality of the world at the time and what had come before obviously makes the Nazis look completely insane, but in context they look like the worst, or at least one of the worst, among a bad lot.

Of course you're basing the wartime and pre-war rapid rearmament as a model of what the post-war Nazi economy would be, which is about as helpful as saying the same about the British war economy and rapid pre-war rearmament. Speaking of which, how is Britain not going to face serious economic hardship after this war without being able to loot Germany, get their own forced labor from PoWs, and with the empire falling apart? Will the US be in a position still foot part of the bill?

People to devour? They'd need labor not mass murder post-war. Remember Hitler was the driver behind genocide, not Goering. He was a scumbag for sure because he was willing to carry out Hitler's sick will against the Jews to stay in power, but without Hitler driving him on there isn't an indication he would continue on with genocide of his own will. Again I base that on a biography about him. Really there was not much difference in the Soviet and Nazi forced labor program other than the Nazis actually paying people for their labor and forced laborers actually being treated better (and fed better) than Gulag prisoners.

For all the claims about the Nazis being bad at economics they somehow managed to fight the entire world for over 5 years and nearly won while never economically collapsing until the country was physically overrun. So I'm not nearly as convinced they would implode after the war was over unless the public rose up against the government. In actuality they were going to push for a version of the European Union.

The massive plans for 'settling the east' weren't really practical, in part because of the size of the commitment and also because few if any Germans wanted to become isolated pockets of settlement among a sea of Slavs who would be massively hostile to them and with in most cases a hostile climate. However moving Germans into Poland and then probably later Bohemia as the local population was consumed by the demand for slave labour is a different issue. Especially since with a much smaller area and population well within the reach of German power and heavily occupied even isolated examples of resistance are going to be quickly crushed.
They were also barely tried. A few failures and they gave up. So whatever planning in that direction they did early in the war was well defunct by 1943. Germans were moved into the areas largely within the 1914 borders, but failed dismally when they tried to move into areas beyond that. The Czech lands were worked by Czech workers, so they weren't going anywhere and throughout the war they were paid, not enslaved. The Poles too were paid even if their labor in Germany mostly wasn't consensual, but they were allowed to send home remittance payments. Especially if the Warsaw Uprising never happens due to the Soviets not reaching that far things aren't going to be conducive to settlement of the area of the General Government, especially given how effective Polish resistance largely was.

I don't think you really appreciate how limited German options will be for at least a generation after WW2 when it comes to policy; they won't have the strength to do any of the atrocities you think they would have. If they had won in 1942 then you'd have a point, but if they had gotten a negotiated peace deal in 1944 they simply wouldn't have the strength as they'd need a large army as well as what remained of German manpower to work in factories. Given sabotage they simply couldn't continually rely on forced labor.

The fact that the USSR was a brutal system is less important than that, even at its worst under Lenin and Stalin it wasn't as bit-shit insane as Nazi Germany. Nor was it based on ethnicity to anything like the same degree, although there was a clear bias towards 'Great Russians'. However other groups were to be ruled not enslaved or exterminated. OTL the death rates from both regimes might have been comparable but then the USSR ruled a much larger population for ~70 years rather than a smaller one for ~12 years.
I don't think you really appreciate how brutal and batshit insane the Soviets were under Lenin and Stalin. The 'softer, kinder, gentler' USSR came about when Khrushchev took power and realized the old way of Stalin was simply not sustainable or conducive to a healthy society. Hence his denouncement of Stalin's legacy and liberalizing of Soviet. He was a truly interesting and reforming figure, but got toppled when he irritated too many interests that were wedded to a hardline Stalinist agenda and that directly led to the collapse of the USSR.

Nazi Germany's insanity was largely driven by the war. Pre-WW2 they were VASTLY less insane than even Lenin. The invasion of the USSR changed that though, but it still took until 1944 before the Nazis, as brutal as they were until then, got even close to the Soviet body count. Whether or not the Soviets were as racist as the Nazis (see their population 'transfers' and various oppressions to contradict that theory) is immaterial given the mass murders they committed across the board. Whatever reason you are inflicting suffering and death on other people matters less than what you're actually doing and the scale of it.

Also remember that the Soviets mostly restricted their mass murder to the period of Lenin and Stalin, so while Stalin had a longer reign than Hitler, he still killed more people in that time. Hitler supercharged his mass murder basically from 1941-45 due to losing the war and he was going to take out all his rage on people while he could. Stalin wasn't really worried about that, so could spread it out over a longer period of time. Still the period in the 1930s was exceptionally bloody before the war and depending on how you want to attribute deaths even during WW2 Stalin was arguably worse since he enabled Hitler to do everything he did from 1939-41. Would Hitler have invaded Poland or France without Soviet support, political, military, and economic? There are good arguments that the blame for WW2 falls on Stalin since Hitler couldn't have acted or even been as 'successful' as he was without Stalin's help and support.

Hitler did decide what units went were, most famously in the split of forces between Rommel's preferred forward defence and Rundstedt's strategic reserve further back so its likely that a larger force would be split in a similar factor if Hitler was still in charge. Here he's not so what gets decided could be totally different in any number of ways.
IOTL because he reserved that power for himself as head of OKW and OKH. But he largely did that because of Rommel's persuasion of both Hitler and Rundstedt. Totally different is unlikely given the personalities in play and Goering favoring the arguments of the young over the old in general. I highly doubt he sides with Rundstedt completely.

That post-war Germany, boosted by western aid and a full part of the western economic system prospered so much doesn't mean that a longer lasting Nazi German would do so. Given their economic policies and continued corruption and infighting let alone their ethnic policies its extremely unlikely they would do so.
Germany got less aid than any country in the world and their recovery was predicated on Allied restrictions being removed, not any help they got from the US. Besides they paid FAR more in reparations than they ever got in financial support from the US and had to pay for the occupation. All that was a huge drain. Plus then later they had to form a military, that they had to pay for, under US direction to supplement NATO forces.

Without losing the war they'd be vastly richer, especially if they maintained a grip over Western and Central Europe and of course not losing the war, paying reparations/being looted, having their brain trust looted by the Allies, not having to pay occupation costs, not be physically smashed in the ground fighting of 1945, not being bombed in 1945, all the addition deaths during and after the war and slave labor that they endured after the war, etc.

Economic policy is much less important than the ruin they experienced in 1945.

Plus if the invasion is defeated and the Soviets checked well east of the 1941 border most of Europe would actually be much less destroyed and far fewer people killed than if the Allies fought it out to the bitter end like IOTL. Even Poland would be vastly less destroyed without the fighting over it in 1944-45 and subsequent Soviet occupation, looting, and deportations or wartime German atrocities. As it was, even with the killing of Poles the Nazis did during the war, by 1944-45 other than war related killing, the massacres had largely stopped and Polish labor was far too valuable to kill off.

Possibly things would be better for the world if Canaris could deliver on his offer - which I doubt - and that the German army would be prepared to disarm - which I also rather doubt - and Germany would be willing to submit to democratic reform and reparaition to its victims for the last ~5 years of brutal suffering - which I doubt as well. If you don't have the latter step you not only have a deeply immoral outcome but Germany surrounded by nations which have every reason to hate it, which isn't going to be good for Germany or the west as a whole.
By 1943? After Stalingrad? The majority of Germans wanted peace and even Allied generals were begging for FDR to remove the unconditional surrender demand because they were convinced they could have gotten the majority of Germans to surrender and end the war in 1944 after the invasion of France had that option even been on the table. I don't think you appreciate just what a game changer Roosevelt and Churchill's position was for extending the war, since the Germans then, even those inclined to hate Hitler, had no other options but to fight out the war to the bitter end.

Honestly I don't think you really realize just how many would have eagerly grabbed at the chance to end the war in 1943 if that had been a viable option or how much the German general staff was willing to dispose of Hitler after Stalingrad had they had the option to do so and get a peace deal that would leave them free of Soviet occupation and integrated into the US post-war order. Even without guarantees a large group still tried to coup Hitler when they could (many previous attempts had failed). Even William Shirer, an American journalist in Germany at the time and famous author of the Third Reich, noted just how many German civilians wanted the war to end immediately in 1939. He isn't the only one. Roger Moorehouse, British historian, has even written histories of Germany during the war and noted how people privately wanted the war to end, but were simply caught between a merciless dictatorship and revengeful enemy powers and left with no recourse but to endure or perish.

Frankly I doubt many in 1943 in Germany would have been adverse to paying reparations if they could avoid unconditional surrender of the 1945 model.
 

stevep

Well-known member
"To save millions of lives, supposedly, we're going to destroy multiple cities filled with millions of people who will be killed in atomic fire."

This makes exactly zero sense from any sort of ethical perspective. Because the Germans are oppressing millions of Slavs and Jews, we're going to kill millions of Germans, Slavs and others either directly through atomic blasts or indirectly through fallout, the collapse of the food infrastructure, etc.

If it would cause tens of millions of deaths you would probably be right. This is pretty much impossible with early nukes. Allowing the Nazis to continue their policies for another decade or two and you are very likely looking at those figures.

And none of these interest groups combined compose a majority, nor were they able to force the United States to exercise the nuclear option against the USSR from 1945-1949 when the possibility of such existed. There is exactly zero reason to assume this would happen, based on the polling we have; throughout the war it was consistently found most Americans did not view Germans in a negative light and did overall care about the atrocities they were known of. You're attempting to project modern opinions onto the 1940s, when such didn't exist at all.

In which case why were they fighting them, including seeking to bomb them back into the stone age?

You don't need those groups to make a majority, just a large enough amount to make a difference in the decision making process.

Actually its more opinions from say the 60's and 70's compared to the opinions of some from the 2020's who assume that the US has no stomach for hard work. ;)

Actually, the Germany economy was increasingly pulling ahead of the USSR even in 1944 in all respects and had already surpassed the UK in GDP and other critical factors; most of the inefficiency theory has been debunked for sometime now in the sense you are staking the case. As it were for the nuclear question, the Germans had no ideological problems at all with nuclear weapons; that's a complete myth. Until 1941, they were at worst equal to the Allies if not ahead, it's only in the 1941-1942 timeframe that they lost their advantage. Most tellingly, the captured German scientists at Farm Hill IOTL 1945 were able to figure out how the American did within a matter of days in August of 1945; they will definitely do so here and Germany has all the resources it needs to build a nuclear weapon.

Fun Fact: Bohemia and East Germany were the main source of inputs for the Soviet atomic bomb project.

The German economy had been ahead of the UK in GDP prior to the war so that's no surprise. They may well have gained some limited advantages over the Soviets in the latter stages of the war, although as always Spreer's figures should be taken with a [large] pinch of salt. However despite your desires they were still a mess in organisation and where are they going to get the continued numbers of slaves to maintain production if they don't depopulate much of the Slavic territory they still own?

I've never read that about the Farm Hill reports. The Germans initially refused to accept the idea - basically "how could anyone else succeed when we failed"? Here of course their not going to be informed as the invention of a nuclear capacity is likely to be a closely guarded secret. As such their most likely to find out with any accuracy when such weapons are used against them.


The Soviets will likely be latter than OTL and the British will be lucky to get them on time; how exactly are they supposed to have the resources for an atomic project if they are staying militarized? If they aren't, why would they use weapons if they can't take advantage of it in the aftermath? Do you really suppose Washington would let London be sufficiently stupid enough to gift the continent to Stalin?

Why would Soviets be later than OTL? They have a much greater incentive for doing something and will still presumably have the same access to the allied bomb project as OTL.

Actually the US tried to stop the UK getting the bomb OTL. It didn't work. Here there's not only a greater incentive, as for the Soviets, but quite possibly also more unofficial aid from the US if the US leadership chickens out.

There is a danger of the Soviets making a grab for parts of eastern Europe in a British acts scenario. A lot would depend on the circumstances. How good a state the USSR would be to make a move and the opposition they would face would depend on the details. They might get some of their OTL territory but even if the US is sitting out of it their unlikely to get as much.

Of course there's one other thing your overlooking. If the Nazis get the bomb- and a delivery system - before their neighbours then there's not a cat in hell's chance they won't use it.

He doesn't need the same prestige as Hitler when he is the legal successor and has the backing of the State and Army.

Outside of the Anti-Nazi Army elements, there are no other power players. The Army detested Himmler, while Goebbels and Bormann have no real power bases to contest Goering's absolute control of the Luftwaffe for example.

The army will definitely have a say and could go a number of ways depending on events. They no longer have the excuse of the personal oath to Hitler than many hid behind OTL. However whether they will support a bloated opium addict who has an history of favouring the Luftwaffe over them? Or simply seek to take over themselves which could prompt a civil war between assorted factions and groups?

No, it was precisely due to lingering Anti-Communism and other factors. Efforts to get it through Congress earlier in 1941 had failed.

And what were the other factors? A residual anti-communism is inevitable but the US quickly overcame that because as you and Sillygoose said they realised it would be easier to have the Soviets doing most of the fighting.


Stalin can certainly try, the problem is his troops run out of food and ammunition a day or so in and the 750,000 IJA soldiers in Manchuria promptly eject them. 6th Guards Tank Army was meant to be the main force of the Soviet offensive and it was out of fuel by August 15th even with the extensive American logistical support provided to the Soviets.

That may be what you want to happen but a more powerful Red Army with a lot of veterans is going to be tough for the Japanese to fight back, let alone throw back as your suggested.

The lack of 500,000 U.S. casualties between June, 1944 and May, 1945. I'd suggest reading Hell To Pay, which goes over this extensively in terms of the impact this had on American military leadership.

So in this scenario, especially since your got less experienced US forces, they suffer a serious loss in invading Japan and make peace then.

The war against Japan was overall much more popular than the war in Europe and you've avoided the exhaustion the war in Europe provoked.

The war in Europe caused little exhaustion, although it is somewhat surprising that I have read that US forces in Europe after the defeat in Germany were in many cases unwilling to go east to support their fellows against Japan. Since those men had seen less than a year's combat that does suggest there is limited will to fight Japan as your suggested before.

Why? If we are assuming the war in Europe ends sometime in 1944, there isn't enough time to move up the timeframe of the invasion of Japan significantly. You still need to clear out the Marianas, Iwo Jima and Okinawa before attempting anything, which will take sometime.

Possibly although your talking about nearly two years so there is potential for an earlier invasion.

Basically OTL, at the strategic level the Japanese weren't expecting the Soviet entry that early.

Which is exactly what I said.

The atomic bombings of Japan motivating the Emperor to seek peace is what was decisive, not the Soviet invasion. However, there will definitely not be a successful invasion here because the Soviets do not have the logistics to support such.

What prompted the Japanese leadership, and especially the emperor, is a bitterly disputed matter. However since the Soviets should not have the logistical problems your mentioning that's unlikely to be an issue. Unless they don't and the markedly earlier ending of the European war means that the US advances the invasion date in which case your argument elsewhere could see the Japanese empire survive. :eek::mad:
 

stevep

Well-known member
How do you have a 'limited' nuclear war that saves millions of lives? Chemical and bio weapons exist even if the Nazis don't have nukes for a while, plus they have jet aircraft that AAA can't touch due to the speed and don't have a SAM program in the 1950s. The first viable one, which used captured German research, wasn't available until the 1950s.
And that doesn't get into the V-2 (or larger versions) being uninterceptable and capable of fitting a proximity fuse as well as being fitted with dirty bomb material. Nuclear war won't be limited and it won't save lives, just kill LOTS more people.

Simple you decapitate the opponents capacity to fight and possibly their political leadership as well then offer them terms that would prevent them suffering further. If it avoids the millions of lives that would be lost in a Nazi state that continues for another 2-3 decades you could well come out ahead by quite a way.

Oh, so just like the British empire or to some degree even the US. You should read what the Americans in India in the 1940s thought of the British system of racial hierarchy there. Or read the history of US exploitation of Latin America. Among other 'activities' in US history.

Unfortunately the Allies were quite racist and economical predicated on a history of brutal exploitation of any number of peoples around the world too. Focusing on Nazi Germany in exclusion to the reality of the world at the time and what had come before obviously makes the Nazis look completely insane, but in context they look like the worst, or at least one of the worst, among a bad lot.

Actually by that time the democratic western powers were moving heavily against such ideas. India already had a large measure of self government and independence was coming - regardless of what reactionaries like Churchill desired. It was too late for the American Indians who did suffer the sort of fate the Nazis planned for the Slavs but by 1940. Since the Nazi policies were often ethnically based there was no out for people who simply wanted to survive. Ditto for the Japanese. Soviet policy was brutal and often idiotic but it didn't require you to have an identity that you can't change.


Of course you're basing the wartime and pre-war rapid rearmament as a model of what the post-war Nazi economy would be, which is about as helpful as saying the same about the British war economy and rapid pre-war rearmament. Speaking of which, how is Britain not going to face serious economic hardship after this war without being able to loot Germany, get their own forced labor from PoWs, and with the empire falling apart? Will the US be in a position still foot part of the bill?

Britain is going to be better off with the war ending earlier and the V weapons attack while the lack of the need for occupation of Germany may help. Although a large military will be needed the priority is likely to be the navy and air force. Use of POWs for assorted work was internationally accepted policy - provided unlikely in the Nazi empire they weren't starved and beaten while they were worked to death. [Ditto in the Soviet and Japanese empires in the latter case of course]. Plus we could well see a lot of refugees as I can't see many if any of the assorted 'free' armies returning to die under German rule. If we get rid of Churchill in the election that will follow the ending of the conflict in Europe - which is likely to occur as OTL - India won't be a massive problem although the OTL internal violence may not be avoidable. There will be less social spending on helping the bulk of the population get a decent life but given the continued threat I think that will provide enough unity to keep people fairly happy.

I'm basing German probable policy on what they were doing pre-war. Military spending and seeking to loot conquered territories are likely to continued and while a number of men are likely to be demoblised I suspect that forced slave labour will continue and the death rates will continue to be high. Whether or not Auschwitz and the other death camps continue to be used after the last substantial numbers of Jews and possibly Soviet POWs are killed will depend on the circumstances. But the brutal slave labour policies will continue as will the desire to loot everything they can from the subject populations, which will cause many deaths indirectly.

People to devour? They'd need labor not mass murder post-war. Remember Hitler was the driver behind genocide, not Goering. He was a scumbag for sure because he was willing to carry out Hitler's sick will against the Jews to stay in power, but without Hitler driving him on there isn't an indication he would continue on with genocide of his own will. Again I base that on a biography about him. Really there was not much difference in the Soviet and Nazi forced labor program other than the Nazis actually paying people for their labor and forced laborers actually being treated better (and fed better) than Gulag prisoners.

Actually look up how many died in the German forced labour system. It didn't reach the same levels as the Soviet system because they didn't have as much time or the same numbers of people to prey on but at least with the Soviet system there was a chance of surviving your 'sentence'.

For all the claims about the Nazis being bad at economics they somehow managed to fight the entire world for over 5 years and nearly won while never economically collapsing until the country was physically overrun. So I'm not nearly as convinced they would implode after the war was over unless the public rose up against the government. In actuality they were going to push for a version of the European Union.

They fought Britain for nearly 6 years but the Soviets for less than 4 and the US for ~3.5. Their continued production was based on looting gold, materials, food and slaves from the areas they controlled. Even so German living standards were poor before the war and didn't exactly improve during it because so much was channeled in the war, corruption and pet projects.

For most of that time both Britain and the USSR were on the back foot and the US also committed heavily to the Pacific, which delayed matters in Europe due to lack of amphibious resources. Plus all sides made bad decisions but the Germans had a hell of a lot of ground to give up.

I'm definitely not a fan of the EU but I wouldn't compare it with anything Nazi Germany might seek to impose on conquered territory after they 'win' a war. For all its corruption and the egomania of some of its leaders its still fundamentally a democratic organisation. It could well implode in the coming couple of decades but I doubt its going to be suppressing free speech, let along using forced labour or running extermination camps.


They were also barely tried. A few failures and they gave up. So whatever planning in that direction they did early in the war was well defunct by 1943. Germans were moved into the areas largely within the 1914 borders, but failed dismally when they tried to move into areas beyond that. The Czech lands were worked by Czech workers, so they weren't going anywhere and throughout the war they were paid, not enslaved. The Poles too were paid even if their labor in Germany mostly wasn't consensual, but they were allowed to send home remittance payments. Especially if the Warsaw Uprising never happens due to the Soviets not reaching that far things aren't going to be conducive to settlement of the area of the General Government, especially given how effective Polish resistance largely was.

I don't think you really appreciate how limited German options will be for at least a generation after WW2 when it comes to policy; they won't have the strength to do any of the atrocities you think they would have. If they had won in 1942 then you'd have a point, but if they had gotten a negotiated peace deal in 1944 they simply wouldn't have the strength as they'd need a large army as well as what remained of German manpower to work in factories. Given sabotage they simply couldn't continually rely on forced labor.

Your giving them free rein of most of continental Europe. Ironically Italy might be the one country - or part of - to escape since most of its outside German control. That gives then a lot to loot albeit many areas are already bled white. Their going to insist on special treatment for the German population while the region as a whole still has a food deficit. Quite likely some smaller version of the hunger plan along with seeking to open lands to German settlement. Which will be easier now with no war and with the US especially having made clear it doesn't care what happens under German rule and the Soviets seeming too weak to do anything.

At some point as the situation become more and more desperate the Polish Home army will fight. It will lose of course but that is likely to be followed by further suppression. Serbia is going to suffer very badly as will Greece and possibly some other regions. The Czechs may escape large scale persecution for a while but their at risk as long as the Nazis are in power.

Western Europe may fair somewhat better but its likely some level of forced labour will continue, although their likely to be markedly better off than the eastern subjects.


I don't think you really appreciate how brutal and batshit insane the Soviets were under Lenin and Stalin. The 'softer, kinder, gentler' USSR came about when Khrushchev took power and realized the old way of Stalin was simply not sustainable or conducive to a healthy society. Hence his denouncement of Stalin's legacy and liberalizing of Soviet. He was a truly interesting and reforming figure, but got toppled when he irritated too many interests that were wedded to a hardline Stalinist agenda and that directly led to the collapse of the USSR.

Actually I do. I just accept that it wasn't as extreme as the Nazis - or for that matter Japanese policies in their empire. Which is one reason why the Soviet empire lasted so much longer, coupled with the boost it got from Hitler and the German invasion - which re-validated the regime in the eyes of many as they found out there was a worse option.


Nazi Germany's insanity was largely driven by the war. Pre-WW2 they were VASTLY less insane than even Lenin. The invasion of the USSR changed that though, but it still took until 1944 before the Nazis, as brutal as they were until then, got even close to the Soviet body count. Whether or not the Soviets were as racist as the Nazis (see their population 'transfers' and various oppressions to contradict that theory) is immaterial given the mass murders they committed across the board. Whatever reason you are inflicting suffering and death on other people matters less than what you're actually doing and the scale of it.

Also remember that the Soviets mostly restricted their mass murder to the period of Lenin and Stalin, so while Stalin had a longer reign than Hitler, he still killed more people in that time. Hitler supercharged his mass murder basically from 1941-45 due to losing the war and he was going to take out all his rage on people while he could. Stalin wasn't really worried about that, so could spread it out over a longer period of time. Still the period in the 1930s was exceptionally bloody before the war and depending on how you want to attribute deaths even during WW2 Stalin was arguably worse since he enabled Hitler to do everything he did from 1939-41. Would Hitler have invaded Poland or France without Soviet support, political, military, and economic? There are good arguments that the blame for WW2 falls on Stalin since Hitler couldn't have acted or even been as 'successful' as he was without Stalin's help and support.

Actually disagrees with what I've read. German brutality was fairly widespread prior to 1-9-39 and it was only after that point that they had large numbers of 'others' to abuse. [Other than internal groups like Jews, liberals, socials, the handicapped etc which were still relatively few in proportion of the population.] German policy in the east especially was set before the war and attempted while they were still expecting to win. You mentioned the Hunger Plan yourself IIRC for instance. Similarly France was being looted right from it signing the armistice and that continued until the Germans were driven out OTL. Ditto with the Netherland and Belgium.

Now the Germans have no clear reason to stop. With Russia defeated, the US quitting and Britain forced to make peace they will have no fear of being charged with war crimes. They will still be desperately short of resources and seek to loot from their subjects because that's what their used to doing and it will be the easiest option for them.


IOTL because he reserved that power for himself as head of OKW and OKH. But he largely did that because of Rommel's persuasion of both Hitler and Rundstedt. Totally different is unlikely given the personalities in play and Goering favoring the arguments of the young over the old in general. I highly doubt he sides with Rundstedt completely.

Which as I said could mean that he favours Rundstedt at least as much as OTL or, if the Soviets don't give up as you suggest commits more resources to the eastern front, which is where the greatest danger is.

Germany got less aid than any country in the world and their recovery was predicated on Allied restrictions being removed, not any help they got from the US. Besides they paid FAR more in reparations than they ever got in financial support from the US and had to pay for the occupation. All that was a huge drain. Plus then later they had to form a military, that they had to pay for, under US direction to supplement NATO forces.

Without losing the war they'd be vastly richer, especially if they maintained a grip over Western and Central Europe and of course not losing the war, paying reparations/being looted, having their brain trust looted by the Allies, not having to pay occupation costs, not be physically smashed in the ground fighting of 1945, not being bombed in 1945, all the addition deaths during and after the war and slave labor that they endured after the war, etc.

Economic policy is much less important than the ruin they experienced in 1945.

Have to disagree with you on the last point given the sheer insanity of the Nazi system. 1st I've heard of reparations from Germany post war other than some seizing of technological knowledge and the general looting of E Germany by the Soviets. However for a decade they were able to avoid military spending and for a long time afterward it was solely forces to defend Germany without wider commitments so they had an advantage over the other great western powers. Also they got the chance to rebuild largely from scratch which unfortunately Britain and probably other allied powers failed to do. However the big advantage OTL over TTL is no Nazis, with insane ideas, massive corruption and bitter infighting and total lack of any rule of law.


Plus if the invasion is defeated and the Soviets checked well east of the 1941 border most of Europe would actually be much less destroyed and far fewer people killed than if the Allies fought it out to the bitter end like IOTL. Even Poland would be vastly less destroyed without the fighting over it in 1944-45 and subsequent Soviet occupation, looting, and deportations or wartime German atrocities. As it was, even with the killing of Poles the Nazis did during the war, by 1944-45 other than war related killing, the massacres had largely stopped and Polish labor was far too valuable to kill off.

The problem is for Poland for instance the wartime attriocities will simply continue. Both simply due to the racial bigotry that the system relied on and also the developed addition to looting whenever they can. By 1944-45 other than suppressing the Home Army they didn't have a massive capacity to do much else but if still in control of the area after the proposed peace agreement they can again do anything they want. Ditto with elsewhere in the east.


By 1943? After Stalingrad? The majority of Germans wanted peace and even Allied generals were begging for FDR to remove the unconditional surrender demand because they were convinced they could have gotten the majority of Germans to surrender and end the war in 1944 after the invasion of France had that option even been on the table. I don't think you appreciate just what a game changer Roosevelt and Churchill's position was for extending the war, since the Germans then, even those inclined to hate Hitler, had no other options but to fight out the war to the bitter end.

Honestly I don't think you really realize just how many would have eagerly grabbed at the chance to end the war in 1943 if that had been a viable option or how much the German general staff was willing to dispose of Hitler after Stalingrad had they had the option to do so and get a peace deal that would leave them free of Soviet occupation and integrated into the US post-war order. Even without guarantees a large group still tried to coup Hitler when they could (many previous attempts had failed). Even William Shirer, an American journalist in Germany at the time and famous author of the Third Reich, noted just how many German civilians wanted the war to end immediately in 1939. He isn't the only one. Roger Moorehouse, British historian, has even written histories of Germany during the war and noted how people privately wanted the war to end, but were simply caught between a merciless dictatorship and revengeful enemy powers and left with no recourse but to endure or perish.

Frankly I doubt many in 1943 in Germany would have been adverse to paying reparations if they could avoid unconditional surrender of the 1945 model.

I think the last section would be grossly inaccurate. If only because German forces were still sitting on massive conquests and with the propaganda being put out most Germans probably still thought they were still winning. Coupled with the demonizing of reparations after WWII. By the end of 1944 possibly but by then most Germans had little say on the matter anyway.

Agree that Roosevelt's insistence on unconditional surrender was controversal and I know Churchill opposed it as well but after what happened in WWI I can understand why it was pushed. I also find it difficult to see the sort of surrender your proposing when the German military is left in place. How the hell are you going to get any stable Europe while Germany occupies vast areas and war criminals are in positions of power?
 

Buba

A total creep
Use of POWs for assorted work was internationally accepted policy
Geneva Treaties. Which USSR repudiated.
Work was only for Other Ranks, though. The "Ruperts" were not to be put to work, but pampered e.g. given batmen from amongst OR.
 

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