How many POD's does one need to have Nazi victory?

[Fenwick]

I am seeing that a single POD can do little more then slow, or speed up the defeat of the Nazi's. Just cause of our morbid love of these fellows let us try to create the perfect combination for a Nazi victory.

So why no start with some ground rules? Simple list a POD and how it improves the Nazi's chance for victory.

1. Air Marshall Dowding is made to retire in March 1939
   • Dowding encouraged keeping British planes at home, plus had knowledge of the ins and outs of fighter command
2. Cyril Newall is sent to New Zealand to act as Governor-General in 1939 instead of 1941
   • Same as above only he had the authority to keep all the fighter planes inside of the UK in the start of the invasion of France.
3. Russia builds the A-20 instead of the T-34
   • Without the vastly superior T-34 the Germans can put up a fight against the Russians for a lot longer in the early months of the invasion of the Soviet Union.

[Wolf]

And presumably you need to keep the US out of the war in Europe.

[Germaniac]

• Albert Speer is appointed to the Minister of Armaments position in 1938 (at the latest)
  • Albert Speer would have put the German Economy on a war Footing from the start. When he took over in 41' Germany was still producing Commercial goods at the same rates prewar. He would get Women to go into the workplace, and get double shifts in place. German production of tanks more than doubled in 1943, production of planes increased by 80 percent, and production. Imagine what he could have done will no allied bombing campaigns

[Mr.Wigglemunch]

Hitler dies 1941, the Wehrmacht take over control in the actual war without the Nazi's meddling. Instead of gazillions of different designs ending up on the front line there are only a few, the Panther becomes the Main Battle Tank supported by Panzer IV's armed with 75mm guns. The Me262 doesn't get screwed over and enters earlier... thus allowing more time for it to be modified so it doesn't need long landing slow down distances and isn't entered as a bomber. You know stuff like that, oh and ofcourse the Generals can actually implement their tactics rather than Hitlers ludicrous biddings.

[Slowpoke]

Well, not having the Nazis at the helm, for one. A Talleyrandian version of Bismarck redivivus with the aim of bringing back a reimagined German Reich (+ Sudetenland, + Austria, - Alsace, - Lorraine) and possibly working to undermine the USSR from within (by fermenting rebellion among its minorities) could be successful. The Nazis, in any shape and form, no.

[Mr.Wigglemunch]

Originally Posted by Slowpoke

The Nazis, in any shape and form, no.

But then it wouldn't be a Nazi victory... and then all the fun of the following cold war and space exploration goes away

[Berra]

I think I found about half a dozen PoDs in Fatherland but that's more a issue of suspension of disbelif.

[Mr.Wigglemunch]

Originally Posted by Berra

I think I found about half a dozen PoDs in Fatherland but that's more a issue of suspension of disbelif.

I havn't read it in atleast 5 years, as you said if you suspend the disbelief of actually getting to that point in time the workings of the Nazi state and its condition in the book are quite believable?

[Fenwick]

Originally Posted by Mr.Wigglemunch

Hitler dies 1941, the Wehrmacht take over control in the actual war without the Nazi's meddling. Instead of gazillions of different designs ending up on the front line there are only a few, the Panther becomes the Main Battle Tank supported by Panzer IV's armed with 75mm guns. The Me262 doesn't get screwed over and enters earlier... thus allowing more time for it to be modified so it doesn't need long landing slow down distances and isn't entered as a bomber. You know stuff like that, oh and ofcourse the Generals can actually implement their tactics rather than Hitlers ludicrous biddings.

Originally Posted by Slowpoke

Well, not having the Nazis at the helm, for one. A Talleyrandian version of Bismarck redivivus with the aim of bringing back a reimagined German Reich (+ Sudetenland, + Austria, - Alsace, - Lorraine) and possibly working to undermine the USSR from within (by fermenting rebellion among its minorities) could be successful. The Nazis, in any shape and form, no.

These are not a "Nazi victory" however.

[King Thomas]

How about Hitler having the sense to not begin the war until he gets nuclear weapons?

[Riain]

Trucks! A PoD which get the Nazis building 200,000 trucks per year from 1940. It was a lack of transport for attack divisions which delayed Barbarossa, not all the bullshit about Greece and the weather. It was a lack of transport that allowed the Panzers to outrun both their supply lines and their infantry. If there is any panacea for the Nazis it is the humble army truck, preferably with dual axle which are tougher and more mobile than single axle civilian trucks.

[jacobus]

Define victory. Does Nazi victory mean, the Reich seizes western Europe, forces the UK to sign a peace treaty, so that the UK, the USSR and the Reich all survive the war?
Does it mean Russia and the UK are conquered, all of Europe and Africa come under Nazi domination, but the Western Hemisphere remains free? Call this Fatherland-style.
Or, does Nazi victory mean world domination Turtledove-style, with even the US and Canada under the Nazi jackboot?
The first "victory" isn't implausible at all. If the Germans can seize Gibralter, shutting the Royal Navy out of the Med, forgetting Barbarossa and instead sending most of their armed forces down to North Africa to serve under Rommel, they could pull it off. Drive through Egypt and across the Suez Canal, seizing all the oilfields of Hejaz, Iran and Iraq. Turkey's Reyfik Seydam would probably have been forced to join the Axis; even if Turkey had resisted, they couldn't have withstood the Wehrmacht.
At this point, with the UK and the USSR neutralized and outflanked, Hitler would have had no need to attack them. Of course, he might have done so anyway. In any case, his chances would have been a lot better.

@ Riain: You're right about the trucks. Look at the Spanish Civil War: a lot of the credit for Franco's victory can be given to the Nationalist army's Ford trucks, imported, I'm proud to say, from the USA. Hitler and his generals learned many lessons from that war, but failed to learn others.

[Mr.Wigglemunch]

Originally Posted by Fenwick

These are not a "Nazi victory" however.

Mine was, I said that effectively the Wehrmacht actually controls the campaigns... the Nazi party would still be the one and only party.

[Dr. Nodelescu]

You would have to avoid the development of the a-bomb. Really.

If Nazi Germany conquered the Soviet Union, the Americans would drop one or another a-bomb on German cities. Europe was and is too important to be completely ignored.

[Wozza]

These things are always so like pulling teeth.

Originally Posted by Germaniac

• Albert Speer is appointed to the Minister of Armaments position in 1938 (at the latest)
  • Albert Speer would have put the German Economy on a war Footing from the start. When he took over in 41' Germany was still producing Commercial goods at the same rates prewar. He would get Women to go into the workplace, and get double shifts in place. German production of tanks more than doubled in 1943, production of planes increased by 80 percent, and production. Imagine what he could have done will no allied bombing campaigns

Germany was the first economy to move to full war production. It also had a higher rate of female participation in the labour force at the beginning of the war than Britain or the US had by the end. The role of Speer is, to a great extent, the result of his own propaganda.

[Wozza]

Originally Posted by Mr.Wigglemunch

Hitler dies 1941, the Wehrmacht take over control in the actual war without the Nazi's meddling. Instead of gazillions of different designs ending up on the front line there are only a few, the Panther becomes the Main Battle Tank supported by Panzer IV's armed with 75mm guns. The Me262 doesn't get screwed over and enters earlier... thus allowing more time for it to be modified so it doesn't need long landing slow down distances and isn't entered as a bomber. You know stuff like that, oh and ofcourse the Generals can actually implement their tactics rather than Hitlers ludicrous biddings.

All major weapons programmes are characteristed by design confusion. The role of Hitler is limited in thses matters. As for this business about the generals and their amazing tactics - they were around to make their excuses, Hitler was not.

[Wozza]

Originally Posted by Riain

Trucks! A PoD which get the Nazis building 200,000 trucks per year from 1940. It was a lack of transport for attack divisions which delayed Barbarossa, not all the bullshit about Greece and the weather. It was a lack of transport that allowed the Panzers to outrun both their supply lines and their infantry. If there is any panacea for the Nazis it is the humble army truck, preferably with dual axle which are tougher and more mobile than single axle civilian trucks.

Wouldn't it be better for the ASBs to give them ray guns?

Seriously, Germany had the lowest rate of car ownership in Western Europe at the end of the 20s, lower that Ireland even.

Just how many industries are the Nazis meant to start from scratch in six years?

[Faeelin]

Originally Posted by Wozza

Just how many industries are the Nazis meant to start from scratch in six years?

Only one more than OTL!

They did, to be fair, make Germany into a significant automotive producer.

Oh, here's an easy one. Bukharin, not Stalin, ends up leading the USSR.

[Wozza]

Originally Posted by Faeelin

Only one more than OTL!

They did, to be fair, make Germany into a significant automotive producer.

Oh, here's an easy one. Bukharin, not Stalin, ends up leading the USSR.

True enough, how many industries are they expected to drag up to truly world beating proportions might be a better question.

Isn't it swings and roundabouts with Bukharin? What you lose in growth (tricky to quantify) you gain in live officers and less diplomatic isolation.

[Eurofed]

Originally Posted by Dr. Nodelescu

You would have to avoid the development of the a-bomb. Really.

If Nazi Germany conquered the Soviet Union, the Americans would drop one or another a-bomb on German cities. Europe was and is too important to be completely ignored.

Americans, however, are going to drop nukes on German cities only if they are already at war with Germany in the first place. Otherwise, they are not going to make an unprovoked first strike just like they did not one against Russia in the early Cold War, when Russia had no or only an handful of nukes.

America is not going to enter WWII without a suitable casus belli, and even if Japan provides one, it's not going to expand its troubles by picking another fight with Germany unless the latter provides suitable provocation, notwithstanding how much Roosevelt may lobby otherwise.

Therefore, if Germany avoids declaring war to USA in the first place, sticks to leaving American shipping absolutely alone, and otherwise makes a show of making its war mostly an anti-Soviet one, at least until Russia is conquered (many Americans felt sympathy about the plight of Britain, few did so about the one of the Bolsheviks), America is never going to enter the war on the side of Britain and Russia. At the very most, they can pressure Germany to give a lenient peace to Britain. After the Nazi Empire wins and takes shape over continental Europe and European Russia, they are sooner or later going to slip into Cold War imperialistic competition with it, but they are not going to make an unprovoked first strike.