Barbarossa and D-Day successful

[ruisramos]

Let’s imagine that Barbarossa succeeds but Nazi Germany is still defeated by the Western allies. Let’s say that the British and American march into Berlin like the Soviets did in OTL, while most of European Russia is still occupied by the Reich’s eastern armies.

How will the post-war Europe look like?

[Tuhachevskey]

Let’s imagine that Barbarossa succeeds but Nazi Germany is still defeated by the Western allies. Let’s say that the British and American march into Berlin like the Soviets did in OTL, while most of European Russia is still occupied by the Reich’s eastern armies.

How will the post-war Europe look like?

How can Barbarossa be succesful? I dont see PoD!

[ruisramos]

Never mind the POD. Maybe the Japanese attack the SU as well. That's not the issue here.

[Tuhachevskey]

Never mind the POD. Maybe the Japanese attack the SU as well. That's not the issue here.

So, the next important questions are unreciprocated:
1) Which territories are occupy by Nazis?
2)How many troops are there?
3)What losses?
4) When they defeated USSR?
5)When Allies defeated Germany?
6)How many nukes did they use?

[Typo]

Dale Cozort did a scenario like this, Germans goes after Moscow in 1942, Soviets collapse in 1945, right as the allies march into the German heartland.

[Chris S]

Well I'm still not sure how this is going to work.

How would it be possible for D-Day to be successful if Germany is now free to send far more divisions to France, Belgium, the Netherlands, Denmark, Norway and Italy to counter the expected attempt by the western allies to invade europe?

Barbarossa started off with 3.2 million German troops with half a million soldiers from Germany's allies and later took up more German troops as casualties mounted. If Barbarossa is successful (and the POD is important to determine when it is successful and how this impacts German preparations for defending western Europe), then Germany is going to able to to free up perhaps 1 million soldiers to send to western Europe. Even if we assume that Germany lost 1 million soldiers in a successful Barbarossa it would still have roughly 2 million left and could peel off half of that to remain in occupation of the western USSR (along with Hungarian, Slovak, Romanian, Finnish and Croatian forces) and Italy would have 200-235,000 soldiers who were in Barbarossa but were now free to be sent to to North Africa to prevent an Allied victory there or to defend Italy itself if the Allies landed in Italy before Barbarossa was successful (again, the POD is important).

Although the allies were outnumbered about 3:1 for D-Day itself, the total western allied commitment to Overlord seems to have outnumbered the Germans in Normany by about 3:1. A successful Barbarossa could well mean no invasion of Italy and Germany could double or treble the amount of forces defending the coasts of France, Belgium and the Netherlands. In addition, without the pressure from the Eastern and Italian fronts, it is very likely (bordering on an impossibility) that the Germans would retreat as they did from France to a defensive line closer to Germany. Instead any Normandy operation might well fail and if it didn't then the Battle for France would be much longer, bloodier and harder and far less likely to result in a victory by the western allies.

Also operation Dragoon (the invasion of France from the south) would be far more difficult without the western allies controlling large parts of italy and the islands of sicily, sardinia and corsica first. Again, in Dragoon the western allies basically matched the German forces in the area and in the immediate assault area actually outnumbered the German defenders.

I just don't see how you are going to get the western allies marching in on Berlin with a successful Barbarossa unless 90% of Germany's military aged men all perished in Barbarossa.

In fact this is starting to look ASBish.

[FloRida]

How can Barbarossa be succesful? I dont see PoD!

Do you have that little imagination? Its not like the Nazi invaded and the Soviets just pounded them from the start. If Hitler would had issues orders to advance on Moscow even just a week earlier. The Americans buy Christies designs and thus he never sells them to the Soviets thus they aren't as advanced in tanks as they were IRL. Germany switches to total war economy before they invade. I mean I can think of an almost endless ammount of PODs. You can't honestly say there was no way they could have won.

[ruisramos]

I was really trying to get the opinion about a post-war Europe where the Western Allies are the only victors. This means a defeated SU. But for the argument sake let’s say that Stalin is killed during a lucky bombardment of Moscow. An internal struggle for power ensues which is the final nail in the SU coffin. The Americans end the war in Europe by nuking Berlin. No landings in Italy or France.

The surviving High Command of the German forces surrenders following the nuking of Berlin in late 1945. The Germans pretty much have Europe occupied from France to the Urals but have been defeated.

What happens next? How will the political organization of post-war Europe be like?

[Chris S]

I was really trying to get the opinion about a post-war Europe where the Western Allies are the only victors. This means a defeated SU. But for the argument sake let’s say that Stalin is killed during a lucky bombardment of Moscow. An internal struggle for power ensues which is the final nail in the SU coffin. The Americans end the war in Europe by nuking Berlin. No landings in Italy or France.

The surviving High Command of the German forces surrenders following the nuking of Berlin in late 1945. The Germans pretty much have Europe occupied from France to the Urals but have been defeated.

What happens next? How will the political organization of post-war Europe be like?

But that's not exactly like having "the British and American march into Berlin like the Soviets did in OTL". The Soviets marched into Berlin by fighting all the way and being conquerers on the ground, not by nuking Berlin and then stepping in over the cowed Nazi high command.

What is the earliest that the Americans could have nuked Berlin however? 1945 I would think. Which would seem to mean that between Germany winning Barbarossa (again we need a time, but assuming it was 1942) and when the Americans decide to nuke Berlin there could be 3 years in which Germany is basically unchallenged in Europe. What's the likelyhood that by then Germany would have developed it's own nukes and thrown money into Amerika bombers and then nuked New York instead? Especially since they could setup factories in the east out of the range of British and American bombers.

Hitler might even attempt to find someway to get Britain out of the war by then, whether it be by Sealion (which may not have worked - call in the Sealion experts) or a Battle of Britain II with a renewed Luftwaffe built up from those factories in the east. Hitler may not even attempt to nuke New York. He could just do London. Even that may not be necessary if he finds someway to concentrate on knocking Britain out of the war (even if he didn't get the Wehrmacht to occupy the island). Without Britain the nearest American base would be Iceland......would it allow American bombers to nuke Berlin? And if Hitler managed to knock Britain out of the war between 1942 and 1945, while America was still in the war (and still in Europe by occupying Iceland and to a lesser extent the Danish possession of Greenland), Germany may then attempt to expel the Americans from Iceland once the threat of British interception was removed. Besides, it would all be in the name of getting back Iceland (and Greenland and the Faroes) for the rightful owners, the cooperative Danes.

[Tuhachevskey]

Do you have that little imagination? Its not like the Nazi invaded and the Soviets just pounded them from the start. If Hitler would had issues orders to advance on Moscow even just a week earlier. The Americans buy Christies designs and thus he never sells them to the Soviets thus they aren't as advanced in tanks as they were IRL. Germany switches to total war economy before they invade. I mean I can think of an almost endless ammount of PODs. You can't honestly say there was no way they could have won.

1)All PoDs in the beginning 1930th isnt good-too many would go another way, than OTL-f.e in August 1939 Stalin arrange with alliens about confrontation against Hitler
2)Hitler couldnt attack Moscow when there are a lot of Soviet troops on the south wing of "Centre"

[Redbeard]

Of course we can find PoDs to have Barbarossa succeed - and they don't even have to be very big or early.

But the problem is, that with SU defeated the Germans can not only turn all their war effort (instead of 1/4) against the western allies, but they also have access to enough raw matials and strategic resources to keep or increase strength.

That won't win the war for Germany, but IMHO it also makes it flat out impossible for the western allies to win the war. The seas will still be allied territory, but I'm not even sure if they in such an ATL can establish air superiority over Europe. And even if they can, the land forces available to the Wehrmacht will be so abundant, that not only establishing a bridgehead but also breaking through will be impossible. The allies simply can't land and supply forces quick enough to match the forces the Germans can concentrate by rail (at night if necessary).

And nukes won't change that. As long as Germany is basically intact - nukes in the numbers realistic many years after Manhattan goes on stage will not have the Germans quit anything. The German leadership clearly were not afraid of heavy casualties, and I doubt the allied leadership can keep the war going until enough nukes are available to obliterate Germany - which anyway may take the whole planet with it.

So realistically there will be some kind of armistice leaving Europe to the Urals to Germany, and the rest of universe to the allies (although the Germans might be first on the moon). For a time that will go on, but no later than OTL Soviet Union the nazi regime will collapse under its own inefficient and corrupt weight. Eventually the allies will win - but with nylons, chewing gum and entertainment as the main weapons.

Regards

Steffen Redbeard

[Rhysz]

How can Barbarossa be succesful? I dont see PoD!

Why are we so hung up on POD's here? I never got this particular fetish on the boards. This TL can go both ways:

1) We can have a little fun thinking how about it would work out and not be concerned with the POD.
2) We can try and have a look at the proposed TL and try to reverse-enigineer a plausible POD. In this case we'll need a series of POD's I think but it could still be fun.

Regards,
Rhysz

[ruisramos]

Why are we so hung up on POD's here? I never got this particular fetish on the boards. This TL can go both ways:

1) We can have a little fun thinking how about it would work out and not be concerned with the POD.
2) We can try and have a look at the proposed TL and try to reverse-enigineer a plausible POD. In this case we'll need a series of POD's I think but it could still be fun.

Regards,
Rhysz

My goal when I started this thread was you option 1)

What would happen to the European borders?
What's future of European Russia (considering that when the germans surrender the communists only control the territories beyond the Urals and are maybe engaged in a civil war)?
And so on...

[Michele]

Of course we can find PoDs to have Barbarossa succeed - and they don't even have to be very big or early.

But the problem is, that with SU defeated the Germans can not only turn all their war effort (instead of 1/4) against the western allies, but they also have access to enough raw matials and strategic resources to keep or increase strength.

That won't win the war for Germany, but IMHO it also makes it flat out impossible for the western allies to win the war. The seas will still be allied territory, but I'm not even sure if they in such an ATL can establish air superiority over Europe. And even if they can, the land forces available to the Wehrmacht will be so abundant, that not only establishing a bridgehead but also breaking through will be impossible. The allies simply can't land and supply forces quick enough to match the forces the Germans can concentrate by rail (at night if necessary).

And nukes won't change that. As long as Germany is basically intact - nukes in the numbers realistic many years after Manhattan goes on stage will not have the Germans quit anything. The German leadership clearly were not afraid of heavy casualties, and I doubt the allied leadership can keep the war going until enough nukes are available to obliterate Germany - which anyway may take the whole planet with it.

So realistically there will be some kind of armistice leaving Europe to the Urals to Germany, and the rest of universe to the allies (although the Germans might be first on the moon). For a time that will go on, but no later than OTL Soviet Union the nazi regime will collapse under its own inefficient and corrupt weight. Eventually the allies will win - but with nylons, chewing gum and entertainment as the main weapons.

Regards

Steffen Redbeard

I am not really convinced.

For starters, I'd like to see that easy POD for Barbarossa to succeed.

That said, the Germans can't turn 100% of their war effort to the West. We know that for a fact. Because in June 1941, when they were committed to the "real" war they wanted to wage, a life-or-death struggle, the decisive campaign – they kept a fifth of their divisions garrisoning France, Belgium and Holland. We can call that a sixth if we count the Axis allies.
Now, France, Belgium and Holland is something like a sixth of the USSR out to the A-A line. More than that if we take into account that Southern France was not garrisoned by the Germans.
Yes, we can take into account that the German troops in the West were not just garrisoning their conquests, they were also guarding them against British interference – which realistically, in 1941, would not amount to more than some harassment raids.
So in case the Germans have won in the East, and occupied everything West of the A-A line, they still need to garrison all of that, six or seven times the Western occupied zones of 1941. They will have Romanian etc. troops to help, but they can't give up too much, of course. If you intend to settle German landowners in those huge Ukrainan estates, you can't have them defended by Romanian troops, and if you want to pump oil from Baku (after some 18 months of work to quell the fires and repair facilities), you can't hand it to the Hungarians. And they have to stop raids from out East; nothing more than harassment stunts, but still.
You do the math. It doesn't add up that they can deploy 100% of their strength to guard the Western beaches. We can argue and haggle about how many divisions they have to use just in order to keep that gigantic acquisition, but it's a sizable chunk. On top of that, of course, there are the losses paid for that victory, which will be less than those paid for the defeat, but substantial anyway.

That said, the reasoning about the Germans redeploying reserves is true – in general. But this is where the century-old British peripheral strategy still works. Sure it's hard to beat the German strength and rail network with the Allied strength and sea power if you land in the Pas de Calais. Now who wins the race to reinforce if the Allies land in Sicily, as they historically did, or in Northern Norway? Up there, even today there is one rail line going North, and much of the traffic is coastal. While the Allies can land everywhere and pour supplies everywhere. Minor operations will further nibble at the margins, also providing further air bases. Crete is retaken, and bombers fly from there to Ploesti, etc.
So why didn't the Allies land there? Because the hike down Norway would have been worse than that up Italy. The same features that make those places hard to reinforce for the Germans, also make them hard to run through for the Allies. And they are far from the core, it's not for nothing that it's called periphery.
But in OTL, the Western Allies were in a hurry. In this one, they aren't. Those peripheral fronts will serve the purpose of entering the Continent through a back door and keep the war going.

What many ATL fans wax poetic about now would be the jets and SAMs and all of that. We would see a technological race, yes.
But that is nothing compared to the way more prosaic problem with food. Remember the WWII Axis sphere ran a continuous food deficit in OTL; it could only stay up by systematically massacring "superfluous eaters" and slowly starving many others. Things get worse in this ATL; the additional territory conquered in the East mostly isn't the "black soil" fertile area; it's the forest-and-steppe. Yet it comes with sizable population (which in OTL, before the war, imported food from the black soil region, the Ukraine). So the Germans have to go ahead with the worst aspects of their plans for the East, and either starve the Russians by the hundreds of thousands or drive them into a famine-induced refugee run beyond the Urals (not that they will find enough to eat there).
That will reduce the need for garrisons, yes. It will also deplete those ex-Soviet farms and mines and oilfields and factories of their workforce. So maybe the Germans downsize the Heer in order to have enough workers – but that makes less troops available for redeployment. Besides, it is not like switching the light off. We would be looking to years of repeated Holodomors, with soldiers needed to guard granaries and slaughterhouses against half-starved rioters. What happened in the Warsaw Ghetto in OTL is probably a good comparison, only it will be multiplied a few tens of thousands times. Ugly and prosaic.

[Chris S]

Why are we so hung up on POD's here? I never got this particular fetish on the boards.

Because this is the Alternate History discussion section - this is the place for the fetish about PODs. Alternate History is bascially meaningless without PODs because without PODs how can one speculate on possible consequences? For instance if the POD is that Germany succeeds at Barbarossa in January 1942 it would be very different from a POD that assumes that Germany succeeded at Barbarossa due to a different Battle of Stalingrad giving the Germans some kind of decisive victory in late 1942/early 1943 which enabled them to conquer the Caucasus and then continue the push into the rest of the Soviet Union and then actually succeeding at Barbarossa in 1944 or something. The second POD would mean thousands more dead people than the first and it would also involve the assumption that the Allies succeed in North Africa and have the potential to land in Italy. The first POD could potentially free up enough soldiers for Germany to prevent an Allied victory in North Africa (and perhaps even allow for a German-Italian conquest of Egypt).....

There is a place for discussion where we don't have to give a hoot about PODs, but that's the Alien Space Bats forum and it's not a bad place at all.



2) We can try and have a look at the proposed TL and try to reverse-enigineer a plausible POD. In this case we'll need a series of POD's I think but it could still be fun.

Regards,
Rhysz

Now that could certainly be possible and fun and would fit into this forum.

[CanadianGoose]

Why are we so hung up on POD's here? I never got this particular fetish on the boards. PODs are important to kill ideology-driven wanks before they took off. Say somebody loves Nazis, hates Russians, hates Communism, want to see Great Germany or is possessed by any combination of said ideas. Without need to define POD this person would be free to excercise in daydreaming "wouldn't it be great if Russia just hadwaived out of world map" or smoth. of this kind.

[Chris S]

I am not really convinced.


For starters, I'd like to see that easy POD for Barbarossa to succeed.

Me too.

That said, the Germans can't turn 100% of their war effort to the West. We know that for a fact. Because in June 1941, when they were committed to the "real" war they wanted to wage, a life-or-death struggle, the decisive campaign – they kept a fifth of their divisions garrisoning France, Belgium and Holland. We can call that a sixth if we count the Axis allies.

Now, France, Belgium and Holland is something like a sixth of the USSR out to the A-A line. More than that if we take into account that Southern France was not garrisoned by the Germans.

Yes, we can take into account that the German troops in the West were not just garrisoning their conquests, they were also guarding them against British interference – which realistically, in 1941, would not amount to more than some harassment raids.

So in case the Germans have won in the East, and occupied everything West of the A-A line, they still need to garrison all of that, six or seven times the Western occupied zones of 1941.

This is assuming that all of the western USSR up to the A-A line has the same population density as France and the Low Countries. Garrison troops are there to protect and control territory and the more importantly, the populations therein. If there aren't any people in the area then one would need far less garrison soldiers. And given the nature of warfare on the eastern front as compared to the western front, there would probably also be more of displacement in the Soviet population as refugees fleeing east than in France and the Low Countries.

Even then what was the percentage of wartime/fighting troops that were retained in France, Belgium, the Netherlands, Denmark and Norway? Norway would be useful given the lower population density in the northern areas which would be more comparable to some sections of the USSR.

They will have Romanian etc. troops to help, but they can't give up too much, of course. If you intend to settle German landowners in those huge Ukrainan estates, you can't have them defended by Romanian troops, and if you want to pump oil from Baku (after some 18 months of work to quell the fires and repair facilities), you can't hand it to the Hungarians. And they have to stop raids from out East; nothing more than harassment stunts, but still.

Don't see why they couldn't have Romanian troops helping to garrison recently conquered territory. Those German landowners in their huge Ukrainian estates are unlikely to arrive in any significant numbers before the mid to late 1940s and until such time it is only the Ukrainian population that Germany would have to be worried about and the Nazi leadership wasn't overly concerned with their welfare. Having the Romanians and Hungarians performing occupation duties is not exactly handing over the territory to them, unless areas around Stalingrad were meant for both countries. Besides, any Barbarossa victory will very likely result in some kind of engagement with the couple of British divisions stationed in Iran (which was being occupied by the Soviets and British). If continuation operations were to occur from the (ex-)Soviet Caucasus down into Iran, then it is likely the Nazi high command would find use for the Romanians and Hungarians in maintaining supply routes and possibly in aiding in any German expedition (which would probably max out at 300-500,000 soldiers) into Iran to kick the British out. The German expeditionary force would of course perform fighting and occupation duties in the Caucasus and Iran just as German units were doing in the USSR during the phase of the war on Soviet territory.

You do the math. It doesn't add up that they can deploy 100% of their strength to guard the Western beaches. We can argue and haggle about how many divisions they have to use just in order to keep that gigantic acquisition, but it's a sizable chunk. On top of that, of course, there are the losses paid for that victory, which will be less than those paid for the defeat, but substantial anyway.

Totally agreed. There is no way they can redeploy 100% of their forces to guard the Western beaches, and as you said below, a 100% redeployment wouldn't even be necessary. But I'm sure Redbeard was just speaking generally and may have meant all of their resources that can be spared - which at any rate would still be considerable enough to affect the outcome of the war.

That said, the reasoning about the Germans redeploying reserves is true – in general. But this is where the century-old British peripheral strategy still works. Sure it's hard to beat the German strength and rail network with the Allied strength and sea power if you land in the Pas de Calais. Now who wins the race to reinforce if the Allies land in Sicily, as they historically did, or in Northern Norway? Up there, even today there is one rail line going North, and much of the traffic is coastal. While the Allies can land everywhere and pour supplies everywhere. Minor operations will further nibble at the margins, also providing further air bases. Crete is retaken, and bombers fly from there to Ploesti, etc.

So why didn't the Allies land there? Because the hike down Norway would have been worse than that up Italy. The same features that make those places hard to reinforce for the Germans, also make them hard to run through for the Allies. And they are far from the core, it's not for nothing that it's called periphery.

But in OTL, the Western Allies were in a hurry. In this one, they aren't. Those peripheral fronts will serve the purpose of entering the Continent through a back door and keep the war going.

I agree that here the peripheral fronts will become more important to the Allies, but apart from northern Norway all of the other peripheral fronts you mentioned (Italy or the Balkans including Greece) depend on the outcome of yet another peripheral front: North Africa. The Allied success in North Africa only occurred from October 1942 to early/mid 1943. I would imagine that any successful Barbarossa operation would probably require the Germans to succeed in late 1941 (December 1941) or maybe by March 1942. Anything around late 1942 is probably going to mean that the Germans will have lost the momentum and wouldn't succeed until sometime in late 1943 or 1944. However an early success in Barbarossa should allow the Germans and Italians to free up soldiers for other areas (guarding Pas de Calais, Flanders, Normandy and Brittany which were the most likely areas for an Allied assault as Norway would have required two landing operations - one in Norway and then another into Denmark) and more importantly it would free up at the very least hundreds of thousands of soldiers to fight in North Africa. Italy had something like 200,000 soldiers in Barbarossa (an Italian Army) which would probably be sent to North Africa in the summer of 1942 and Germany should be able to match that commitment in addition to being able to send over some of the soldiers it has in Italy (about 100-150,000 were sent over to help the Italians and Germans already in North Africa I believe - would have to double check). But all in all, Rommell and company in North Africa could have an extra 400,000-650,000 soldiers to aid their efforts. Should the Germans and Italians succeed in Egypt they could close the Canal and make it more difficult for the Allies to maintain shipping into the Med, except through Palestine, Syria and Lebanon (all of which could well be threatened by any successful German-Italian armies in Egypt and more remotely from any potential success the Germans might have in Iran from whence they could threaten Iraq and the Levant from the east). And a German victory in the USSR might make Vichy authorities more reluctant to the Allies in North Africa (which spared the Allies the effort of having to expend too much effort in landing in Morocco and Algeria) - think Dakar. Either that or an Allied landing in North Africa will be met by the extra German-Italian forces heading up to Tunis from Tripoli and landing in Tripoli (it would all depend on when the extra German-Italian forces were expected - before the landings or shortly after).

Even without Germany and Italy experiencing victory in Egypt, any Allied invasion of the Balkans or Italy would be hindered, if not rendered virtually impossible by a continued German and Italian presence in Libya and Tunisia which would become more likely if they had a larger force.


What many ATL fans wax poetic about now would be the jets and SAMs and all of that. We would see a technological race, yes.

But that is nothing compared to the way more prosaic problem with food. Remember the WWII Axis sphere ran a continuous food deficit in OTL; it could only stay up by systematically massacring "superfluous eaters" and slowly starving many others. Things get worse in this ATL; the additional territory conquered in the East mostly isn't the "black soil" fertile area; it's the forest-and-steppe. Yet it comes with sizable population (which in OTL, before the war, imported food from the black soil region, the Ukraine). So the Germans have to go ahead with the worst aspects of their plans for the East, and either starve the Russians by the hundreds of thousands or drive them into a famine-induced refugee run beyond the Urals (not that they will find enough to eat there).

I think given the looting of resources that would occur, a German victory in the USSR would decrease the food deficit somewhat for Germany. It probably wouldn't become a food surplus, but maintaining active armies across a huge front as they did in OTL in the USSR without having access to any food stores in the areas east of the OTL frontline would seem to have been a bigger drain than the situation postulated by a Germany victory where they reach the Urals and the USSR has presumably capitulated.

In addition, it would be less costly than in OTL - money and supplies would be expended on any campaigning in Iran and any boost to the campaign in North Africa, but even both combined should require the 3 million soldiers used for Barbarossa and if you have less soldiers needing to shoot bullets, it means you save bullets and save money on bullets. Not much to be sure, but every bit adds up. More money could then go into the technological race (including atomic weapons and long range bombers) and by 1944 the Germans wouldn't be having to count the cost of factories being bombed from the Allies all across Europe as some places would still be out of range without the front moving westward due to the Red Army and without total British-American control of North Africa and parts of Italy. Then of course there is the matter of the Ploesti oilfields which are unlikely to be bombed if the Germans and Italians still control Libya. Ploesti was only bombed in August 1943 when the USAAF could launch from Benghazi in Libya. Take that out of the equation and the Germans are left in a better supply situation into 1944 in addition to possibly having access to the Soviet Caucasus oil.

That will reduce the need for garrisons, yes. It will also deplete those ex-Soviet farms and mines and oilfields and factories of their workforce. So maybe the Germans downsize the Heer in order to have enough workers – but that makes less troops available for redeployment. Besides, it is not like switching the light off. We would be looking to years of repeated Holodomors, with soldiers needed to guard granaries and slaughterhouses against half-starved rioters. What happened in the Warsaw Ghetto in OTL is probably a good comparison, only it will be multiplied a few tens of thousands times. Ugly and prosaic.

Very ugly, but also very possible. Even if the Germans maintain 1 million soldiers in occupation in the USSR (+ the 300-500,000 in the Caucasus and perhaps 200,000 from Hungary, Romania, etc), they can still reshuffle enough forces to affect the war in other places. I think there were German troops in Bulgaria at the time. With a Barbarossa victory and control in the Balkans they can probably reduce their presence in Bulgaria to a minimum and send the others elsewhere (occupation in the USSR or France; active duty in the Caucasus or North Africa...). Out of the 3-4 million (not counting the German allies) sent for Barbarossa, even a casaulty figure of 1 million would leave 2-3 million of which they could probably find enough to boost defences in France and the Low Countries, carry out any limited operations in the Caucasus and boost the North Africa campaign.

[Rhysz]

Because this is the Alternate History discussion section - this is the place for the fetish about PODs. Alternate History is bascially meaningless without PODs because without PODs how can one speculate on possible consequences? For instance if the POD is that Germany succeeds at Barbarossa in January 1942 it would be very different from a POD that assumes that Germany succeeded at Barbarossa due to a different Battle of Stalingrad giving the Germans some kind of decisive victory in late 1942/early 1943 which enabled them to conquer the Caucasus and then continue the push into the rest of the Soviet Union and then actually succeeding at Barbarossa in 1944 or something. The second POD would mean thousands more dead people than the first and it would also involve the assumption that the Allies succeed in North Africa and have the potential to land in Italy. The first POD could potentially free up enough soldiers for Germany to prevent an Allied victory in North Africa (and perhaps even allow for a German-Italian conquest of Egypt).....

There is a place for discussion where we don't have to give a hoot about PODs, but that's the Alien Space Bats forum and it's not a bad place at all.



Now that could certainly be possible and fun and would fit into this forum.


Hey mate, I agree with you all the way mate. I just feel some ideas on the forum are rejected out of hand because of missing or unlikely POD's. Lots of fun concepts have been smothered on the boards out of hand because of this.

Maybe we can introduce a new term on the boards. I'll quickly suggest LFPOD (Looking for POD)

example:
LFPOD: Barbarossa and D-day succesful.


Greetings,
Rhysz


Or is that already covered by the 'AH challenge'?

P.S.
On topic:
I can't see any quick POD for this scenario. We'd need to go back quite a bit at least 1938, and I'd say even sooner to get Germany in a position where this could feasibly happen, but then Barbarossa and D-day would also have to evolved into entirely different plans. I know this has been done before, and shot down effectively but here goes:
- The world (GB and US) are experiencing the 'Red Scare´early, maybe the slaughter of Polish officers gets out earlier and causes a public outrage. We can also add in some more RAF like groups and more Russian agression towards Finland.
- The Germans behave more 'humanely' towards both Jews and Slavs. They are still considered üntermenschen but law requires them to be treated well. Think of humane treatment of farmanimals although they are not considered property/slaves (disgusting idea btw).
- Opressed Ukranians, Poles (east) and other eastern European ethnic groups gladly join the Wehrmacht and turn out to be both fanatic and ferocious fighters for the Reich.
- As a result The Allies are a much looser group in this TL, the Western Allies may loathe the Soviets even more than the Germans.
- Most of the war goes a OTL albeit with more German successes in the East than OTL because the Soviets lack more Allied support. I'm throwing my money on an effective long range strategic bomber for the Germans.....
- When the war turn badly for the Germans the GHC decides to lie to Hitler while secretely hoping that the Western powers will have more mercy on a defeated Germany. The Western front is slowly pulled back into Germany with two goals, keep supporting the effort on the Eastern front and trying to avoid as much collateral damage as possible. (IIRC this was actually one of Hitler's pipedreams)
- Hitler kills himself as per OTL.
- The Russians can't grab the initiative in the war but are holding their own against the Germans on a stabilized front.
- Expats from Eastern Europe manage to influence public opinion in the West by demanding their homeland's sovereignty.

HEHE, this might actually be my first attempt at a timeline.
The first thing we need to figure out how insane Stalin is in this scenario I guess.

Possible outcomes:
- Earlier autonomy for Eastern Europe
- SU is much smaller and might even lose lands in the east to a red China or the Japanese (as the lesser evil).
- Communism is as hated as nazism.
- The Russians don't have the resources to fight the Proxy wars of the Cold war but should still easily develop the bomb.

[JJohnson]

My goal when I started this thread was you option 1)

What would happen to the European borders?
What's future of European Russia (considering that when the germans surrender the communists only control the territories beyond the Urals and are maybe engaged in a civil war)?
And so on...

If both were successful, if the western allies get to Berlin first before the Russians, we may have an intact Germany after the war, wherein we have Pommern and Schlesien remain, but East Prussia still annexed to Poland/Russia for the seaport.

James

[Typo]

This is Dale Cozort's scenerio for Germans going after Moscow in 1942

Not successful Barborossa, but a far more plausible complete Allied victory

http://www.dalecozort.com/WW2_0398.htm
http://www.dalecozort.com/WW2_0498.htm
http://www.dalecozort.com/WW2_0598.htm

[Michele]

This is assuming that all of the western USSR up to the A-A line has the same population density as France and the Low Countries. Garrison troops are there to protect and control territory and the more importantly, the populations therein. If there aren't any people in the area then one would need far less garrison soldiers. And given the nature of warfare on the eastern front as compared to the western front, there would probably also be more of displacement in the Soviet population as refugees fleeing east than in France and the Low Countries.


The population density is way lower, but unlike the French, those populations will be starving in place, herded into death/labor camps, or driven East into a gigantic ethnic-cleansing operation. All of which require more troops than the very quiet Northern France of 1941.


Even then what was the percentage of wartime/fighting troops that were retained in France, Belgium, the Netherlands, Denmark and Norway? Norway would be useful given the lower population density in the northern areas which would be more comparable to some sections of the USSR.


In Norway, in June 1941, there were 12 German divisions. Of these, 5 were combat units, and indeed they were there but they have to be counted among the divisions that attacked the USSR (alongside the Finns). 7 were garrison. Even tiny Denmark had its own garrison division. The Norwegian garrison/anti-landing units steadily increased in numbers and equipment.


Don't see why they couldn't have Romanian troops helping to garrison recently conquered territory. Those German landowners in their huge Ukrainian estates are unlikely to arrive in any significant numbers before the mid to late 1940s and until such time it is only the Ukrainian population that Germany would have to be worried about and the Nazi leadership wasn't overly concerned with their welfare. Having the Romanians and Hungarians performing occupation duties is not exactly handing over the territory to them,


Because if you place Hungarians guarding the oilfields or the food-producing regions, the Hungarians will want a slice of those pies. Even if you strike a deal with the Hungarian government, local troops will still take their cut, "informally". Now that's reasonably acceptable for the German government as it happened in OTL say in France, if those are German troops, increasing their own welfare and possibly sending some French salami to their families in Germany. If however that goes to the benefit of Hungarian soldiers and civilians, the German government has reason to be less happy.




I agree that here the peripheral fronts will become more important to the Allies, but apart from northern Norway all of the other peripheral fronts you mentioned (Italy or the Balkans including Greece) depend on the
outcome of yet another peripheral front: North Africa.


I assume the North African shore of the Med is in Allied hands by the time of the final showdown East of Moscow, so all of that is taken as a given. That's why Sicily and Crete are easy preys.


I think given the looting of resources that would occur, a German victory in the USSR would decrease the food deficit somewhat for Germany.

Well, no. The food shortage applies to the whole European _Axis sphere_, not just to Germany. In OTL, for instance, France imported meat from South America and vegetable oils and grains from its North African colonies. Italy likewise imported food. All wide-ranging fishing activities are impossible. A sizable proportion of the manpower is in uniform, and while they can be replaced by slave labor, as we know that was not as effective. The fertilizer factories are now producing explosives. At least three years of summer campaigns (Poland, France, then at least until 1942 to end the USSR) have wrecked the strategic reserves.
Desperate, starving civilians will try and loot granaries, even at risk of being shot. This is why I mentioned, above, that the garrisons in the East, even in presence of lower population densities, will need to be robust.

I'll end by quoting Gen. Leykauf, Waffenamt Inspekteur for Ukraine, who in December 1941 bluntly reported: "If we shoot the Jews dead, let the POWs die, subject to starvation a considerable share of the urban population and in the next year also lose part of the countryside population to starvation, the following question remains unanswered: who do we suppose will actually produce economic value?"

[tallwingedgoat]

The German forces in France on D-Day were a shadow of what was lost in the east. 2/3 of German casualties were on the Eastern Front. Had the Soviets surrendered, I don't see how the Allies could hope to invade Europe, it would be far too heavily defended.

[Michele]

The German forces in France on D-Day were a shadow of what was lost in the east. 2/3 of German casualties were on the Eastern Front. Had the Soviets surrendered, I don't see how the Allies could hope to invade Europe, it would be far too heavily defended.

How? The answer is in my previous posts.

[CanadianGoose]

How? The answer is in my previous posts.Would this strategy lead to Nazi's collapse before they got nuks of their own? Because the game would be over the day when Great Leader of United Europe would be able to say to Americans "we'll nuke NYC next time you little shits play this silly game of yours in our playground". Nazi dictatorship can survive nuke and continue aggressive war. It is much harder for democracy.

[Michele]

Would this strategy lead to Nazi's collapse before they got nuks of their own?

Finding the fissile material where?

[Susano]

Finding the fissile material where?

The (very aptly named) Ore Mountains? Theres plenty of uranium to be mined there. Thats not the problem. Science is...

[Grand Prince Paul II.]

Finding the fissile material where?

In Saxony and Thuringia.

Search for uranium ore intensified during the cold war, but only in East Germany was an extensive uranium mining industry established. Uranium was mined from 1947 to 1990 from mines in Saxony and Thuringia by the SDAG Wismut. All the uranium mines were closed after the German reunification for economic and environmental reasons. Total production in East Germany was 230.400 t of uranium making it the third largest producer in history behind the USA and Canada. A minor production takes still place at the Königstein mine southeast of Dresden from cleaning of mine water. This production has been 38 t of uranium in 2007.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uranium_mining#Germany

[Susano]

Note that this is the OTHER Königstein ;) Though I didnt know they still have a mine there...

[Adam]

This is Dale Cozort's scenerio for Germans going after Moscow in 1942

Not successful Barborossa, but a far more plausible complete Allied victory

http://www.dalecozort.com/WW2_0398.htm
http://www.dalecozort.com/WW2_0498.htm
http://www.dalecozort.com/WW2_0598.htm

Frankly, in such a scenario, I see the Germans collapsing by early-mid 1945. There's no way they can built "thousands of jets" AND get the proper fighter pilots to man them with an Allied bombing round the clock, there's no way they're gonna be able to build missiles capable of hitting New York by 1946 in that kind of bombed-out situation, there's simply no way they are going to bluff Uncle Sam from slamming them with two to dozen atomic warheads if they continue to fight till '46.

[Typo]

True, the ending gets unplausible, but the general premise isn't. I could see some sort of German hold-out in Ukraine, for instance.

[Chris S]

The population density is way lower, but unlike the French, those populations will be starving in place, herded into death/labor camps, or driven East into a gigantic ethnic-cleansing operation. All of which require more troops than the very quiet Northern France of 1941.

intially......once starvation sets in though it would be more quiet than France.......

Plus those camps and ethnic cleansing operations wouldn't really get going to the point where the Germans aren't able to free up some troops. Those plans were long-term and even if they were started immediately, the short term plan would be keep the Allies out and have undisputed supremacy in Europe. That's when the horror would increase many fold.

Because if you place Hungarians guarding the oilfields or the food-producing regions, the Hungarians will want a slice of those pies. Even if you strike a deal with the Hungarian government, local troops will still take their cut, "informally". Now that's reasonably acceptable for the German government as it happened in OTL say in France, if those are German troops, increasing their own welfare and possibly sending some French salami to their families in Germany. If however that goes to the benefit of Hungarian soldiers and civilians, the German government has reason to be less happy.

So the Hungarians would want a slice of the pie that they guard, but not want a slice of that same pie that they sent men to die in obtaining? If that held true then Germany was bound to give Hungary and Romania a slice of the pie in the USSR anyway, so they may as well utilize them to help temporarily occupy the area. Even the Bulgarians helped out in occupying sections of Greece apart from the areas that they had annexed. After all what the plan in the event of victory anyway? It certainly couldn't have been to give the Hungarians and Romanians a pat on the back and send them on their way with only a verbal "thank you".


I assume the North African shore of the Med is in Allied hands by the time of the final showdown East of Moscow, so all of that is taken as a given. That's why Sicily and Crete are easy preys.

Well given that North Africa wasn't in Allied hands until very late in 1942, I would assume that the Germans have already finished up Barbarossa by then. I would rather expect that the final showdown would have been Moscow. If the USSR does not captiulate after losing the entire Caucausus, Leningrad, Baltics, Belarus, Ukraine and the Moscow region...wouldn't it just continue the fight even if pushed back to the Urals?


Well, no. The food shortage applies to the whole European _Axis sphere_, not just to Germany. In OTL, for instance, France imported meat from South America and vegetable oils and grains from its North African colonies. Italy likewise imported food. All wide-ranging fishing activities are impossible. A sizable proportion of the manpower is in uniform, and while they can be replaced by slave labor, as we know that was not as effective. The fertilizer factories are now producing explosives. At least three years of summer campaigns (Poland, France, then at least until 1942 to end the USSR) have wrecked the strategic reserves.

Desperate, starving civilians will try and loot granaries, even at risk of being shot. This is why I mentioned, above, that the garrisons in the East, even in presence of lower population densities, will need to be robust.

Right, but Germany wouldn't be too bothered about the rest of the Axis sphere really now would it? Germany was importing/requisitioning food from all over Axis Europe and would do the same to the conquered USSR. And the food in the granaries in the USSR won't stay there for long - it would be shipped to Germany and thus away from starving civilians in it's point of origin.

Given 7 divisions to garrison Norway and the fact that about 5 other divisions were involved in the operations against the USSR from Norway, then a German victory there would mean that at least some of those 5 (at the very least 1) could then go elsewhere, even if most of those 5 remained in the USSR to garrison the area.

I'll end by quoting Gen. Leykauf, Waffenamt Inspekteur for Ukraine, who in December 1941 bluntly reported: "If we shoot the Jews dead, let the POWs die, subject to starvation a considerable share of the urban population and in the next year also lose part of the countryside population to starvation, the following question remains unanswered: who do we suppose will actually produce economic value?"

Good quote, but he obviously wasn't heard. That question could apply long term and short term but the bigger heads above him didn't seem too worried about.

[Hendryk]

Why are we so hung up on POD's here? I never got this particular fetish on the boards.
Because the POD is where a given TL starts from. How can we provide input on where a TL is going if we don't know where it started from? Have you tried looking for directions without knowing where you were to begin with?

[juanml82]

So, even if the Germans succeds, they now have an open front with the British in mountainous Iran, witch is close to Irak, India and Baku? And that front happens to be at the end of a very long and improvised supply line?

[Markus]

I think a successful Barbarossa butterflies away a D-Day. German casualties go to near zero, just as loss of equipment, there are more resources and they can be used differently once the USSR collapses.

I see no plausible way for an invasion of France and nukes, well you got to drop them first and be sure nothing comes back. If a fraction of the money and resources that went to the Army and into Russia goes into the Luftwaffe instead air allied superiority by 43 and air supremacy by 44 is wishful thinking.

[CanadianGoose]

German casualties go to near zero, just as loss of equipment, there are more resources and they can be used differently once the USSR collapses. That begs a question. How long would it take for Nazi to get Soviet industrial capacity (depleted by Stalin's evacuation of factory equipment and many skiller workers, if we don't butterfly THAT too) back on-line? I.e., when can we realistically assume that Soviet industrial machine is working for the United Europe? 1942? 1944? 1950?

[Markus]

That begs a question. How long would it take for Nazi to get Soviet industrial capacity (depleted by Stalin's evacuation of factory equipment and many skiller workers, if we don't butterfly THAT too) back on-line? I.e., when can we realistically assume that Soviet industrial machine is working for the United Europe? 1942? 1944? 1950?

That´s not needed to defat D-Day. A mere 50 german division were in France, 150 or so in the USSR where 80% of German casualties were inflicted. If that ends by 42 the German industry is quite capable to deal with anything the Allies have in 44.

[Susano]

Because the POD is where a given TL starts from. How can we provide input on where a TL is going if we don't know where it started from? Have you tried looking for directions without knowing where you were to begin with?

Thats narrowminded. I personally never care much about PoDs. I mean, yes, there is the initial (first) divergence somewhere, but approaching the matter with "Okay, that is the chance, lets see what consequences it has" is just one way. Another is to plot all elements of the timeline, independant of the first divergence, so long as it is plausible. One could call this multi-PoD, but Id rather call it not caring about a single PoD.

[Michele]

intially......once starvation sets in though it would be more quiet than France.......

Plus those camps and ethnic cleansing operations wouldn't really get going to the point where the Germans aren't able to free up some troops. Those plans were long-term and even if they were started immediately, the short term plan would be keep the Allies out and have undisputed supremacy in Europe. That's when the horror would increase many fold.



So the Hungarians would want a slice of the pie that they guard, but not want a slice of that same pie that they sent men to die in obtaining? If that held true then Germany was bound to give Hungary and Romania a slice of the pie in the USSR anyway, so they may as well utilize them to help temporarily occupy the area. Even the Bulgarians helped out in occupying sections of Greece apart from the areas that they had annexed. After all what the plan in the event of victory anyway? It certainly couldn't have been to give the Hungarians and Romanians a pat on the back and send them on their way with only a verbal "thank you".




Well given that North Africa wasn't in Allied hands until very late in 1942, I would assume that the Germans have already finished up Barbarossa by then. I would rather expect that the final showdown would have been Moscow. If the USSR does not captiulate after losing the entire Caucausus, Leningrad, Baltics, Belarus, Ukraine and the Moscow region...wouldn't it just continue the fight even if pushed back to the Urals?




Right, but Germany wouldn't be too bothered about the rest of the Axis sphere really now would it? Germany was importing/requisitioning food from all over Axis Europe and would do the same to the conquered USSR. And the food in the granaries in the USSR won't stay there for long - it would be shipped to Germany and thus away from starving civilians in it's point of origin.

Given 7 divisions to garrison Norway and the fact that about 5 other divisions were involved in the operations against the USSR from Norway, then a German victory there would mean that at least some of those 5 (at the very least 1) could then go elsewhere, even if most of those 5 remained in the USSR to garrison the area.



Good quote, but he obviously wasn't heard. That question could apply long term and short term but the bigger heads above him didn't seem too worried about.

Starvation can be fast or slow. If "fast", that's still a year or so, during which the riots will take place every day, everywhere. That's an awful lot of troops tied down, widespread destruction, production disrupted, and casualties for the German forces. _Then_ things will cool down, but there will still be problems with production due to the extensive destruction and the shortage of workers.
If starvation is slow, then garrisons can be cut back – but that level of garrisoning, albeit reduced, will have to stay in place for a decade or so.

As to the minor Axis allies' slices, of course the governments will ask for their own state's official slice. What I'm saying is that the local troops always took their own private unofficial slice too. In occupied France, that tended to amount to 15%. That applies to consumer goods alright, not to ammunition crates; but "consumer goods" definitely includes things like foodstuffs and coal. it weas tolerable to the Germans insofar as that went to the welfare of their own soldiers and families.

The whole of North Africa was fully in Allied hands by april 1943, actually. However, if the Germans are 100% focused on the USSR – which for me is a requisite if we want a victory by the end of 1942, otherwise we have OTL to show what will happen – they don't help the Italians out down there. In that case by mid 1942 if not earlier North Africa will be Spanish, Vichy French, and British.

We're looking at a few years, you know. So keeping the friendly Italians and Romanians etc. losing weight _is_ going to be a problem. And in a perspective of say 3 years, you need to fill those granaries every year. Actually you need to protect the countryside from the wandering hordes of near-starved, desperate city dwellers who will be out to dig out the next year's sowings, to assault the local miller's cart and the isolated farm's pigsty and such like.

As to the general's comment, it was heard all right. The Germans did not treat the Ukrainans kindly – that's why I always laugh when I read the proposed PODs of recruiting millions of happy Ukrainans to fight the Soviets. But neither did the Germans carry out the whole GPO policies or the even more nightmarish ideas some of the Nazi leadership floated at times. They did kill the Jews and most of the first batches of POWs, and they did slowly starve most the city dwellers. But they had to feed workers serving their war machine and above all they had to let the peasants eat insofar as they provided them with their quotas, since they were the ones closest to the source. The GPO provided that the whole Ostheer should be entirely fed at the expense of the occupied territory by the third year of the war (in the East), and that objective was never achieved, even though in 1943 the Germans were still controlling most of the areas from where most of the food came.

[Michele]

I see no plausible way for an invasion of France


That's why a peripheral strategy was mentioned. You know, the French Empire, for all its might and numbers, never managed to staunch the Spanish ulcer.


and nukes, well you got to drop them first and be sure nothing comes back.


Both of which are quite a given.


If a fraction of the money and resources that went to the Army and into Russia goes into the Luftwaffe instead air allied superiority by 43 and air supremacy by 44 is wishful thinking.

You are aware, of course, that Lend Lease to the Soviet Union also cost the Western Allies some wads of money. All of that is now available.

[Wozza]

As to the minor Axis allies' slices, of course the governments will ask for their own state's official slice. What I'm saying is that the local troops always took their own private unofficial slice too. In occupied France, that tended to amount to 15%. That applies to consumer goods alright, not to ammunition crates; but "consumer goods" definitely includes things like foodstuffs and coal. it weas tolerable to the Germans insofar as that went to the welfare of their own soldiers and families.


Interesting figure - is this from Gotz Aly's book?

[Markus]

That's why a peripheral strategy was mentioned. You know, the French Empire, for all its might and numbers, never managed to staunch the Spanish ulcer.



Both of which are quite a given.



You are aware, of course, that Lend Lease to the Soviet Union also cost the Western Allies some wads of money. All of that is now available.

The French could not defeat Spain because of the other front´s demands. But in case of a soviet collapse no other front could possibly be a similar drain on german resources.

With the Army having much less need for tanks and guns, the Air Force can and will get a larger share of german resources.

No LL on the one hand and no Eastern Front on the other would be a zero sum game, if LL had been a drain on the Allies just as big as the Eastern Front had been on the Germans.

[Chris S]

Starvation can be fast or slow. If "fast", that's still a year or so, during which the riots will take place every day, everywhere. That's an awful lot of troops tied down, widespread destruction, production disrupted, and casualties for the German forces.

Wha..? How? When did anything like this occur in OTL that significantly impacted on Germany's abilities? Sure there were uprising in the ghettoes in Poland, but why would the rest of European Russia and the Caucasus present a different situation to what happened in Poland, the Ukraine and the Baltics & Belarus in OTL from 1941 onwards? Sure there will be partisans and riots and so forth, but it isn't like those things weren't be handled from 1941-1943 in the occupied areas already - and that too with an active front line. If there is no front line against an organized Soviet Red Army as must be assumed if Barbarossa is to be successful then all those troops that were previously too busy fighting at the front will now be free to carry out garrison duties. Anything less than a total capitulation (formal or effective capitulation) of the Red Army and Soviet Union cannot be considered a "successful" Barbarossa, because otherwise it would mean that there is the potential for the Red Army to counterattack as it did in OTL.

_Then_ things will cool down, but there will still be problems with production due to the extensive destruction and the shortage of workers.

But why would it be any different than in the occupied areas of the USSR from OTL from 1941-1943? During that time, millions of workers were actually sent (or volunteered) to go to Germany to make up the work shortage there and in OTL the occupied areas throughout Europe raised capital, part of which went towards the occupation costs.

If starvation is slow, then garrisons can be cut back – but that level of garrisoning, albeit reduced, will have to stay in place for a decade or so.

Right, but your thinking in terms of decades, but that's skipping a few steps. For any garrison to remain for a decade, it would require undisputed mastery of Europe, which in turn would require Germany to win the war, so they would need to transfer some of the troops to other areas such as France and North Africa (I doubt any Barbarossa can be successful after mid 1942 if everything else essentially remained the same in the TL) in order to ensure that the Allies have virtually no way of attacking the Continent.


As to the minor Axis allies' slices, of course the governments will ask for their own state's official slice. What I'm saying is that the local troops always took their own private unofficial slice too. In occupied France, that tended to amount to 15%. That applies to consumer goods alright, not to ammunition crates; but "consumer goods" definitely includes things like foodstuffs and coal. it weas tolerable to the Germans insofar as that went to the welfare of their own soldiers and families.

Except the reason why Romania and Hungary even sent troops for Barbarossa in the first place was to curry favour with Hitler in hopes of changing (for Romania) or keeping (for Hungary) the situation that existed in northern Transylvania. Romania also got territory from the Ukraine (Transnistria), but the Romanian and Hungarian soldiers went much farther than would have been required if they were simply there to obtain territory and control for their respective governments. In fact, Romania so wanted to curry Hitler's favour that it apparently sent more soldiers to die over there than even Italy - amounting to some 800,000 mobilized in total apparently. This competition to gain favour with Hitler wouldn't stop with a successful Barbarossa as long as there is still something either country could do that might swing Hitler's opinion.

And whether local troops took their own unofficial slice, why would Hitler even care? Whether the local troops taking an unofficial cut were German or Romanian, it wouldn't make a difference because the "cut" was unofficial anyway and something that wouldn't be approved of if it was brought to the attention of the tops of the chain of command. In northern France, there were only German troops and as you said, they still took a cut which amounted to 15%. It was only tolerable because it was probably too widespread and of not enough consequence for anything to be done about it. The same would apply elsewhere and since every Romanian or Hungarian soldier that remained in a support role for the temporary occupation of the USSR (until the Axis get an armistice with Britain and maybe the USA or at least until the threat of Allied invasion of Europe is effectively nil) would free up a German soldier for continued operation towards that end (ensuring victory in Europe), there is no reason why such unofficial cuts wouldn't be tolerated from Hungarian or Romanian troops as well since the benefits (ensuring victory in Europe) would be as great, if not greater than the costs (losing some coal and food, some of which would probably have gone to Romania and Hungary anyway, since whether or not their soldiers are in the USSR they still have to eat).


The whole of North Africa was fully in Allied hands by april 1943, actually. However, if the Germans are 100% focused on the USSR – which for me is a requisite if we want a victory by the end of 1942, otherwise we have OTL to show what will happen – they don't help the Italians out down there. In that case by mid 1942 if not earlier North Africa will be Spanish, Vichy French, and British.

How? What happens to change the situation in North Africa by mid 1942? As you yourself said earlier, it is impossible to expect that Germany would remove 100% of its forces from the USSR after victory and likewise it would be impossible to expect that they would do the opposite and remove 100% of their forces from elsewhere in order to obtain victory in the USSR. They had 150 divisions in the USSR (plus the armies of their puppets from Italy, Hungary, Romania, Slovakia and Croatia along with volunteers from Spain and elsewhere in Europe). In OTL the German losses from May 1941 to May 1942 were about 600,000 (Barbarossa and North Africa being the active fronts at the time). Unless changes are made in the TL from 1938 like Rhysz attempted then any changes made to Barbarossa will probably require Germany taking Moscow by late 1941/early 1942 and moving on to the A-A line by mid 1942. Otherwise they are going to end up losing momentum as in OTL and giving the Red Army time to counter and extending any possible victory into 1943...but which would probably require something like what was attempted at the Caucasus and Stalingrad (plus given Hitler's ego, he is still likely to want to capture Stalingrad and so set his own generals up for failure if the Soviets can turn Stalingrad into a focus point as happened in OTL). And if Barbarossa isn't dealt with by 1943 then North Africa is already in Allied hands and so is part of Italy, which means that Germany would get bogged down as in OTL fighting in Italy and probably not have enough momentum to take the initiative in the USSR especially as by 1943, we have to take into account the effect of continued lend-lease aid to Germany and the fact that Germany would not have been able to spend enough resources to counter the bombing threat from the USAF and RAF which would continue to drain at Germany's potential to actually make war and thus obtain victory in Barbarossa by 1943 in the first place.

Also in OTL, from May 1942 to May 1944 German losses amounted to 2.5 million, of which a significant majority came from the eastern front. Even if we assume 60% of that figure is from the eastern front that would be 1.5 million soldiers. If Germany lost an extra 400,000 by May 1942 in winning Barbarossa, the losses garnered afterwards from riots by lightly armed peasants, etc is unlikely to amount to 1 million soldiers between 1942 and 1944. Less soldiers dead would mean more left alive to garrison and to be used elsewhere.

By May 1943 in OTL Germany had an active strength of 9.5 million and a total loss of 1.7 million (for a total mobilization of 11.2 million). Butterfly away the haemorrhage that was the active eastern front by mid 1942 and Germany might have an extra 300-400,000 soldiers left alive for a total strength of 9.8 - 9.9 million. With extra soldiers to throw at North Africa (even if the Allies land which is still less likely with any Barbarossa victory as it would not be assured that Vichy French forces would not put up resistance as they successfully did in repelling an Allied attempt at Dakar - and now if Germany was successful in Russia, what reason would the Vichy French forces have for believing that the Allies could still overcome Germany?).


We're looking at a few years, you know. So keeping the friendly Italians and Romanians etc. losing weight _is_ going to be a problem. And in a perspective of say 3 years, you need to fill those granaries every year. Actually you need to protect the countryside from the wandering hordes of near-starved, desperate city dwellers who will be out to dig out the next year's sowings, to assault the local miller's cart and the isolated farm's pigsty and such like.


But no more of a problem than OTL and with the added bonus that they now have control over more granaries, etc than in OTL and without the expense of an active and massive eastern front using up resources like a sponge. And since they (the friendly Italians and Romanians in the rest of Axis Europe) would have and were fed in OTL and didn't die of starvation why would it be any different in TTL when they have control over more foodstuff?

As to the general's comment, it was heard all right. The Germans did not treat the Ukrainans kindly – that's why I always laugh when I read the proposed PODs of recruiting millions of happy Ukrainans to fight the Soviets. But neither did the Germans carry out the whole GPO policies or the even more nightmarish ideas some of the Nazi leadership floated at times. They did kill the Jews and most of the first batches of POWs, and they did slowly starve most the city dwellers. But they had to feed workers serving their war machine and above all they had to let the peasants eat insofar as they provided them with their quotas, since they were the ones closest to the source. The GPO provided that the whole Ostheer should be entirely fed at the expense of the occupied territory by the third year of the war (in the East), and that objective was never achieved, even though in 1943 the Germans were still controlling most of the areas from where most of the food came.

But in 1943 with a successful Barbarossa they would be controlling more land with less troops dead. Let's say that out of the 3.5 million sent into Barbarossa as 150 divisions, that Germany lost 1 million. Now the European USSR is 5 or 6 times the size of France but a substantial portion of it is more northerly than France (and more about the same latitude as Norway). In addition the European USSR is much less densely populated than France (and would be more so with refugees who flee east). France had 50 divisions in occupation according to an earlier post and Norway had 12 divisions in occupation (of which about 60% or 7 divisions were actually used to garrison Norway, while the other 5 were used to support Barbarossa). Norway though is 60% of the size of France but has a population of about 7-8% that of France. However the number of German divisions in Norway was 24% of what was in France (not 60% to conform with the territory) and about 14% of what was in France if only those actually garrisoning the country are considered. So the USSR will not require 5-6 times the numbers required for France and I suspect that given Germany could still mobilize more troops between 1942 and 1943 in OTL, that it could leave behind 60 divisions in occupation of the northern and central portions of the European USSR and 25 divisions in occupation of southern European USSR (especially the Caucasus). If they lost 1 million out of the original 3.5 million and thus lost about a third of the 150 divisions that leaves 85 divisions in the USSR and 25 divisions free to go elsewhere (plus the 200,000 Italian soldiers who would be free to go to Italy and North Africa). Those 25 divisions in the Caucasus could then provide perhaps 10-15 divisions to carry out an expedition into Iran which would was being occupied by the Soviets (now defeated) and the British (who had only 2 divisions and 3 brigades in that country). And since the British force in Iraq and in Syria and Lebanon were of similar sizes, the most that the British could probably draw into Iran from the rest of their middle east forces would be probably 6-7 divisions (apart from Palestine/Transjordan and Egypt - which would be robbing Peter to pay Paul). The British could draw soldiers from India directly, but that may impact on their efforts against the Japanese in India and Burma...

Throw in the soldiers raised between 1942 and 1943 from OTL then Germany could have an extra 400,000 to send to help garrison the USSR and to go to northern France and North Africa.

[Faeelin]

We would be looking to years of repeated Holodomors, with soldiers needed to guard granaries and slaughterhouses against half-starved rioters. What happened in the Warsaw Ghetto in OTL is probably a good comparison, only it will be multiplied a few tens of thousands times. Ugly and prosaic.

Thsis seems dead on. I think people forget that many in the West thought the Russians would collapse, yet didn't plan on giving up when they lost.

[manga_fanatic]

What if the PODs is Finland's involvement, Pearl Harbor and the Soviet-Japanese Neutrality Pact.

-Finland realizes that it would not be able to keep its newly reclaimed territories if Russia manages to recuperate. It sends some assitance during the Battle of Smolensk, Battle of Uman, Battle of Kiev, Battle of Moscow, etc. Unlike their German counterparts, they could be prepared for a long war extending into the war.
-Instead of taking outright military action against Russia and Mongolia that lead to the Soviet-Japanese border war in the OTL IJA and Kwantung decide to leave things as they are. They continue to have border skirmishes. They however, plan for an eventual invasion of Mongolia as Operation Barbarossa is underway.
-Instead of escalating things with the U.S., the IJA realizes it can get more materials through Soviet territories or trading directly with other Axis countries and begins planning a detailed invasion Mongolia with a three pronged attack, assisted by planes and bombers. Later on, it would move onto Siberia. Because of this, they move their doctrine becomes less focus on ships and more on planes.
-Russian forces are divided between fighting on two fronts against three armies. Since in this ATL the Soviet-Japanese Neutraility Pact wasn't signed, they still have troops stationed at the border away from the European Front and without soldiers with experience from the conflict (one of which being Georgiy Zhukov.)
-Operation Barbarossa is a technical victory for Germany, even though the Russian military and government is still intact. Leaves room for both sides to recuperate. Russian forces on the East Asian front manage to repel IJA and Kwantung from Siberia and Mongolia with help from Chinese forces but fails to take out its grip on Manchukuo due to reinforcements by the IJN and infant developments on Anti-Armor tactics.
-And then...*shrugs.* One of them accidentally attacks a U.S. ship?

[Faeelin]

What if the PODs is Finland's involvement, Pearl Harbor and the Soviet-Japanese Neutrality Pact.

-Instead of escalating things with the U.S., the IJA realizes it can get more materials through Soviet territories or trading directly with other Axis countries and begins planning a detailed invasion Mongolia with a three pronged attack, assisted by planes and bombers. Later on, it would move onto Siberia. Because of this, they move their doctrine becomes less focus on ships and more on planes.

But the Soviet forces in the region were probably enough to conduct a defensive action, and let's not kid ourselves; the resources Japan needs aren't available.

[manga_fanatic]

But the Soviet forces in the region were probably enough to conduct a defensive action, and let's not kid ourselves; the resources Japan needs aren't available.
Still, Soviet forces would be divided between two fronts and three countries. If the border wars never occured, they would still have commanders and soldiers who could have used against the German-Finnish invasion a significant distance away. Whether or not the Japanese succeed I think is moot. Though, I suppose even if they did have slightly better planes and more prepared troops, the results of the original border war would have probably been the same due to the fact that they didn't have signicant experience against tanks and Zhukov would be leading the defense.

[DeathDemon]

Still, Soviet forces would be divided between two fronts and three countries. If the border wars never occured, they would still have commanders and soldiers who could have used against the German-Finnish invasion a significant distance away. Whether or not the Japanese succeed I think is moot. Though, I suppose even if they did have slightly better planes and more prepared troops, the results of the original border war would have probably been the same due to the fact that they didn't have signicant experience against tanks and Zhukov would be leading the defense.
Actually, even IOTL the Soviets always kept enough troops in the east to kick the Kwantung Army back to the Home Islands, if need be.

[manga_fanatic]

Actually, even IOTL the Soviets always kept enough troops in the east to kick the Kwantung Army back to the Home Islands, if need be.

Yet hadn't they relaxed their presence in the East when the Neutrality Pact was signed? Zhukov would still be stuck in the East and would not be a part of the defense in the European Front. The IJA are also not as worn out as they would be in the OTL when the Soviet's invaded then.

[Michele]

Interesting figure - is this from Gotz Aly's book?

No, it is from a book in French about the German occupation in France and Belgium, by Jacquemins et al.

[Michele]

The French could not defeat Spain because of the other front´s demands. But in case of a soviet collapse no other front could possibly be a similar drain on german resources.

With the Army having much less need for tanks and guns, the Air Force can and will get a larger share of german resources.

No LL on the one hand and no Eastern Front on the other would be a zero sum game, if LL had been a drain on the Allies just as big as the Eastern Front had been on the Germans.


The point is not just available force, but the capability of applying it. Suppose the Allies land in Norther Norway with five divisions. Sure the Germans might send 50 divisions, as far as available force goes. Now, how are they going to send them? Not by sea, of course – the Allies have already won supremacy on the seas. By rail then. Now there is even today just one rail line going up there, and the Allies can easily keep it permanently under repairs, what with all of its bridges, tunnels and ferries.

It is the same issue with the age-old what-if of more German commitment to Africa. Sure, possible in theory. But nobody has ever found a way to actually bring that force to bear.

This will develop into an air battle. Now, in OTL the Allies built all those huge bombers. If the Germans are spending more on the Luftwaffe, the Allies can spare on bombers and for each bomber build some four or five fighters. Once the Allies have a foothold up there, they won't be able to advance quickly out of it, for sure, and very possibly they won't be able to advance out of it at all; but neither will the Germans be able to dislodge them. An ulcer.
And I do not believe the Soviet Union won't be an ulcer itself. Add occupation duties in an immense hostile territory, a border with whatever remains of the USSR, landings in Crete and then Sicily, and the Germans will be bleeding the classic thousand pinpricks.
Nothing of that will be enough to defeat Germany, of course; but the point is just keeping the war going until the nukes.

As to the Germans spending that much on the Heer and the Eastern Front, yes, that is true – to a point. In mid-1942, when nobody believed any more that the Soviet hut would collapse with the first kick to the door, the Germans were already spending 38.7% of their armament production money on aircraft, and 12,1% on naval assets. Of the remaining 49.2%, no less than 38.6% was for general production of ammo, guns and explosives, most of which would go to the Heer, of course, but a part would again be for the aircraft, vessels, and home defense AA. So it's not as if the Germans were expending 80% or so on the Soviets.
In any case, on this topic I find your logic a bit circular. You claim that the Western Allies can't hope to defeat the huge, now unemployed German army; then you claim that that same army will be underfunded. Tanks age quickly in war. The Germans can certainly decide to spend more on fighters and not produce Panthers, but sooner or later they might well regret that, given that the Allies can keep updating their tank force.

As to no Lend-Lease and no Eastern Front being a zero sum game, it actually is in favor of the Germans, considering that the Soviets did contribute to that front... My point is that when one starts thinking wishfully, he easily sees a given change's results that are favorable to one side, and forgets that there might well be results that are favorable to the other.

[Michele]

Wha..? How? When did anything like this occur in OTL that significantly impacted on Germany's abilities? Sure there were uprising in the ghettoes in Poland, but why would the rest of European Russia and the Caucasus present a different situation to what happened in Poland, the Ukraine and the Baltics & Belarus in OTL from 1941 onwards?

Because in OTL the Germans did _not_ carry out the extremes of GPO and did not go for all-out starvation. This led to few all-out uprisings (which when happened did take a toll on German combat units, not just garrison units), but it also led to an overall food deficit for the European Axis sphere. Some suffered more, to the point of death by starvation (the Soviet POWs, the Jews), some quite a lot, to the point of significant death tolls due to malnutrition (the Greeks, the Ukrainans), some less (the Germans), some in between (the French or Belgians), but overall the entire area was _not_ self-sufficient and could only keep going, eventually, by starving the slave workers and forcing the civilians in all occupied countries to make additional holes in their belts.

So taking huge additional territories in – territories that have large population centers such as Moscow or Leningrad, but little local food production – is going to worsen things. The idea of maxing-out the GPO would allow the Germans to "export" beyond the A-A line the food deficit, by deporting masses of Soviets and cutting down the food supply to much of the rest. But that will a) cut down the industrial production in the occupied areas and b), as mentioned, increase the need of deployed troops to face Warsaw Ghetto x1,000.
Alternatively, the Germans can try to feed everyone, so that the workers in that Dobass mine will keep digging out coal for the Reichsbahnen, while at the same time keeping that big army in uniform so that the Western Allies can't land wherever they want – and… at such an attempt… they will fail. Europe was very simply a food-importing region.

As to North Africa, I don't see changes there in 1942 – but in 1941. Nobody, this far, has provided here even a shred of a half-credible proposal for the success of Barbarossa. But some have said that the actual means of achieving that is not important. Fine; so I won't go into that, but I will place as a basic assumption that the Germans in 1941 have to focus on the Soviet Union alone. No Afrika Korps (that gives them to use in the Soviet Union not a lot of additional combat units, just two armored/motorized division, but also the very sizable logistical truck fleet of Afrika Korps). Italian defeat in North Africa in 1941.
If you believe that things do not change in North Africa, because the Axis assets there are as per OTL, then I'll insist on somebody, either you or someone else, detailing how the heck the Germans win in the Soviet Union. There's no such thing as a free lunch.

[Chris S]

Because in OTL the Germans did _not_ carry out the extremes of GPO and did not go for all-out starvation.

Exactly! And the reason why was because they hadn't yet won the war and so couldn't focus entirely on GPO. In any successful Barbarossa TL which does not have Britain already giving up from 1940, the Germans will still not have won the war and they would know it and hence there would be no reason why what happened in OTL in the occupied areas of the USSR wouldn't still be what generally occurred if Germany occupied most of the European USSR.

This led to few all-out uprisings (which when happened did take a toll on German combat units, not just garrison units), but it also led to an overall food deficit for the European Axis sphere. Some suffered more, to the point of death by starvation (the Soviet POWs, the Jews), some quite a lot, to the point of significant death tolls due to malnutrition (the Greeks, the Ukrainans), some less (the Germans), some in between (the French or Belgians), but overall the entire area was _not_ self-sufficient and could only keep going, eventually, by starving the slave workers and forcing the civilians in all occupied countries to make additional holes in their belts.

So taking huge additional territories in – territories that have large population centers such as Moscow or Leningrad, but little local food production – is going to worsen things. The idea of maxing-out the GPO would allow the Germans to "export" beyond the A-A line the food deficit, by deporting masses of Soviets and cutting down the food supply to much of the rest. But that will a) cut down the industrial production in the occupied areas and b), as mentioned, increase the need of deployed troops to face Warsaw Ghetto x1,000.

But this is looking at the effects quite a few years down the road, not just 1943-1945. Sure they won't be self-sufficient 1943, but they weren't in OTL anyway and still somehow managed to keep up fighting until 1945. The same would apply in this TL only here large numbers of Russians would undergo similar malnutrition to that of the Greeks and Ukrainians (and malnourished people won't be able to put up as effective a resistance....).

Besides, given the siege of Leningrad and the refugees and the fighting why are Leningrad and Moscow still going to be the huge population centres that they were in the pre-war situation? And how does any of that differ from places already under German control like Riga, Kiev, Odessa, Kharkov/Kharkiv, Smolensk, Minsk, etc anyway?

Alternatively, the Germans can try to feed everyone, so that the workers in that Dobass mine will keep digging out coal for the Reichsbahnen, while at the same time keeping that big army in uniform so that the Western Allies can't land wherever they want – and… at such an attempt… they will fail. Europe was very simply a food-importing region.

Which changes nothing from OTL anyway, even though in OTL the Germans and their allies kept on fighting even when put in a worse position by losing control of what food producing regions they previously held in the USSR. Why would something have to change from the modus operandi of the situation as existed from 1941-1943 anyway as opposed to just applying it to a greater area?


As to North Africa, I don't see changes there in 1942 – but in 1941. Nobody, this far, has provided here even a shred of a half-credible proposal for the success of Barbarossa. But some have said that the actual means of achieving that is not important. Fine; so I won't go into that, but I will place as a basic assumption that the Germans in 1941 have to focus on the Soviet Union alone. No Afrika Korps (that gives them to use in the Soviet Union not a lot of additional combat units, just two armored/motorized division, but also the very sizable logistical truck fleet of Afrika Korps). Italian defeat in North Africa in 1941.
If you believe that things do not change in North Africa, because the Axis assets there are as per OTL, then I'll insist on somebody, either you or someone else, detailing how the heck the Germans win in the Soviet Union. There's no such thing as a free lunch.

Hitler wasn't about to let Mussolini hang, so having no German units in North Africa doesn't seem possible. Unless the POD is changed from the 1930s. Hitler didn't want to bother with Yugoslavia until after Barbarossa, but again thanks to Mussolini his hand was basically forced. Besides, it would be kind of impossible for the Axis to deny the Allies access to the Mediterranean (and thus the possibility of landing in southern Europe either in Italy or coming back to cause trouble in the Balkans) if the Axis just let the Allies have North Africa and continue to have unimpeded access through the Suez Canal to the important islands of Cyprus and more importantly Malta. It also threatens to alienate a key ally of Germany. Have Hitler basically sell out Mussolini and the possibility exists for Mussolini (or rather Italy) to do the same. Italy switched pretty quickly once the Allies landed on the peninsula and Italy's entire reason for allying with Germany was because it wanted to dominate the mediterranean and north africa. Take that away and you take away the very basis for Italy's active alliance. Even if Italy didn't switch, just by no longer being an active ally it opens up a world of trouble for Germany since the Allies will have an easier time returning to the Continent if they know Italy doesn't give a damn anymore. And since the Afrikakorps was sent to North Africa at the same time that the Allies were still in Greece, how do you propose getting Hitler to send help to the Italians in the Balkans but not in North Africa even though both theatres were linked through Egypt and necessary to secure the Axis' southern flank? Neither are like Italian East Africa where the Germans have no realistic way of sending help even if they wanted to. North Africa may have been peripheral, but it was important. Italian East Africa wasn't even peripheral, it was marginal and defeat there could be reversed by success elsewhere that forced peace in their favour anyway (or by victory in North Africa paving the way for the Italians to go back via Egypt). If Hitler doesn't help Mussolini, then the Italians face defeat in Greece and Albania presenting the Allies with an opportunity to woo Yugoslavia (which wouldn't have been invaded if Hitler let Mussolini fend for himself) and Bulgaria (which would still have been officially neutral having not been pressured to signed the Tripartite Pact in preparation for the invasion of Greece). The Allies could then try to woo Yugoslavia and Bulgaria to join them or remain neutral. The mere possibility of the former would expose Germany herself to direct invasion (through Yugoslavia) and would threaten the rear area (Hungary and Romania) needed to support Barbarossa. And should the Allies take all of North Africa in 1941, then whether or not they were also successful in Greece it would present the opportunity for an Allied invasion of Sicily (plans for which already existed in 1941 as Operation Influx). So the Allies take North Africa and then with unimpeded access (apart from U-boats) to the Med from both east (Suez) and west (Straits of Gibraltar) they can land in Sicily in 1941 using Gibraltar, Malta, Cyprus, Egypt and the rest of North Africa to support such an invasion. The Italians are likely to do no better than in any of their other encounters with the British and Americans then Rommel probably doesn't even get to go the USSR with the "Afrikakorps" (or whatever it would be called in preparation for invading the USSR in May or June 1941) and instead gets sent to Italy with the Afrikakorps becoming the Italienkorps which would then be tasked with preventing the Allies from moving up the Italian peninsula and then threatening Germany (through the former Austria) or southern France (which would also have the potential to perhaps cause the Vichy regime to try and switch as well if all of France hasn't been occupied yet).

[Michele]

Exactly! And the reason why was because they hadn't yet won the war and so couldn't focus entirely on GPO. In any successful Barbarossa TL which does not have Britain already giving up from 1940, the Germans will still not have won the war and they would know it and hence there would be no reason why what happened in OTL in the occupied areas of the USSR wouldn't still be what generally occurred if Germany occupied most of the European USSR.




You are missing the key point.

With what the Germans had occupied in OTL, they had taken most of the food-producing areas of the USSR. _And_ with all of that they ran a food deficit.

Add everything to the A-A line, and you add a few millions more population _and_ no significant additional food-producing land. The people in Moscow and Leningrad lived by importing food from the South-East.

There is a reason if GPO and other plans draw a survive/die line between the black soil areas and the forest/steppe areas.

So no, once everything is taken to the A-A line, the already bad food deficit will become unsustainable without further - major - adjustment. There is no chance of things being more or less as per OTL.