After WW2--weak Germany and Japan?

Simple question, likely leading to complicated answers.

After the war, Japan's far right government was removed, the gap filled by left-leaners. In Germany, the plan was for the destruction of heavy industries and the reduction of the country to a second-rate state.

But the spectre of communism was just too scary. The far right was re-emplaced in Japan, and Germany was built up again.

But what if...

Say something happens in 1945 or 46 that makes the Soviet Union less scary. Stalin dies or something.

Whither Germany and Japan?
 
Post-Stalin transition in 1945 is going to be pretty smooth, it would go to foreign minister, Vyacheslav Molotov, himself an ardent Stalinist, who remained loyal personally to Stalin even after Stalin sent his wife to prison for her support of Zionism. Stalin appointed Molotov his successor and this is publicly known, unlike Lenin's last will and testament which throws muck on everyone but throws the least on Trotsky (which is to say, Trotsky wins Lenin's nomination) which was confidential and therefore was easily suppressed by Stalin.

But really by 1945, the point at which it is readily apparent to everyone barring Hitler that Germany is going to lose the war, and the seeds for an East-West confrontation over the postwar world are pretty much already planted to sprout.

I really can't see the West actually implementing something like the Morgenthau Plan unless the Soviet Union was such a basket case that there wasn't even a shred of a fear that wrecking Germany would be a decision that would deny the West a useful ally against the USSR.
 
I really can't see the West actually implementing something like the Morgenthau Plan unless the Soviet Union was such a basket case that there wasn't even a shred of a fear that wrecking Germany would be a decision that would deny the West a useful ally against the USSR.

So how do we make the Soviet Union a basket case?
 
Simple question, likely leading to complicated answers.

After the war, Japan's far right government was removed, the gap filled by left-leaners. In Germany, the plan was for the destruction of heavy industries and the reduction of the country to a second-rate state.

But the spectre of communism was just too scary. The far right was re-emplaced in Japan, and Germany was built up again.

But what if...

Say something happens in 1945 or 46 that makes the Soviet Union less scary. Stalin dies or something.

Whither Germany and Japan?

Read the Hoover memorandum (1947). 19 pages.
Two years after the war when the "reduction of the country to a second-rate state" was still in place.

A summary of some points (any errors are mine):


  • The rebuilding of (Western) Europe outside Germany has slowed down. Partly because of a lack of iron, steel and heavy machinery formerly produced in Germany. Likewise producers of raw materials - for examples iron mines in Sweden and France - now lack the Ruhr region / German customers.
  • The economies of Europe pre-war were highly dependent on each other. Removing now the German economy as producer and customer simply means that the rest of Europe can´t rebound on its own. Even countries as far away as Turkey and Greece were connected to the German economy.
  • Re-creating these heavy industries outside Germany (and training the skilled workers) would take time and money. Money the European countries don´t have. So the American taxpayer would have to fund it over many years.
  • The plans made during the war proposed that Germany is only allowed to have some light industry. Using exports from those to pay for needed imports (food, oil, raw materials etc.). However the proposed allowed light industry levels are even lower than Germany´s pre-war levels. It´s impossible that Germany can generate enough exports to pay for needed imports.
  • Germany lost traditional agricultural regions annexed by the USSR and Poland after the war. So the land available for agriculture is down compared to pre-war. At the same time the population in remaining Germany now is larger than pre-war (refugees from all of Eastern Europe). The restrictions for light industry in place also restrict for example the production of fertilizer to less than what Germany needs itself. So to even have enough fertilizer for the remaining agricultural regions Germany would need to import fertilizer. Which means that Germany can´t feed its population. And given that exports won´t be enough to pay for needed imports it´s either:
    - the USA gets accustomed to donate food each year and forever or
    - 25 million Germans either have to emigrate (good luck in 1947) or starve.
As I see it the USA has basically three mid / long term options in 1947 if we disregard the USSR here:


  1. Throw up their hands and go home. Basically the WW1 approach. In which case most of Europe will go Communist inside a few years.
  2. Throw money at the rest of Western Europe for years - if the American taxpayer agrees - while making Germany a huge concentration camp. I´d say a forecast of 25 million dead would allow the use of that term here?
  3. Help rebuild Germany so than the European countries can rebuild itself.
#1 seems self defeating. #2 probably would face growing opposition in the USA itself. So what´s left over?
 
So how do we make the Soviet Union a basket case?

How then did this basket case defeat Nazi Germany? :)
If it was a basket case before 1945 then the Nazis obviously would have had an easier time in the USSR? Maybe even send more resources / soldiers to France in 1944?

And why should the USSR become a basket case in the hour of its greatest triumph in 1945? Even with Stalin dying in 1945 I just can´t quite see a Russian Civil War in 1945/46.
The Red Army will stay in Eastern Germany, Austria, the Balkans....
With a lot more troops than the USA and the UK.
 
The Germans in desperation to defeat the Soviets unleashes chemical and biological weapons on a large scale on the Eastern front. The Wester Allies on seeing the cold ruthlessness of the dieing German regime hardens their hearts and decides to turn Germany into a wasteland that will 'Never again threaten civilized countries' The Soviets are greatly weakened by the disease and death inflicted by the Germans. The U.S. and Britian are reinforced in their decision to implement the Morganthau plan when the come across the death camps in Germany
 
The Germans in desperation to defeat the Soviets unleashes chemical and biological weapons on a large scale on the Eastern front. The Wester Allies on seeing the cold ruthlessness of the dieing German regime hardens their hearts and decides to turn Germany into a wasteland that will 'Never again threaten civilized countries' The Soviets are greatly weakened by the disease and death inflicted by the Germans. The U.S. and Britian are reinforced in their decision to implement the Morganthau plan when the come across the death camps in Germany

The Germans didn´t do that in OTL so you´d need a plausible POD why they would do it here. And why they thought it would help them?

If so they could use nerve gases. An (only short) Internet search says that they didn´t develop any offensive biological weapons against humans? Foot and mouth disease might be a possibility though.

Gas warfare though only makes sense against large concentrations of people (soldiers) near the frontline (using artillery guns). Since Germany later in the war didn´t have the capacity for large scale (never mind long range) air attacks. So any attacks will "only" hit land already ravaged by the war. No way to touch the Ural tank factories for example.
There´s also the fact that German artillery is hopelessly outnumbered. If they start firing they´ll start seeing counter battery fire pretty quickly. Just imagine what happens if some of the stored gas shells get hit? You think German soldiers back then had the antidotes or had full anti chemical suits?
Not to forget that the agents in the shells degrade over time. For some of them it´s just weeks or months since binary chemical weapons aren´t yet developed. So quite a few of the shells will be duds.
Or how to get the shells to the frontline. A random air (or partisan) attack on one of the trains might prove "problematic" so to speak. Transporting lots of nerve gas shells to the frontline also means that other supplies (ammunition, fuel, spare parts) won´t be transported since Germany only has limited supply capacity.
Or how the Red Army would respond. I assume they have their own biological and chemical programs?

So a German desperate large scale chemical attack on the Eastern front strikes me as not really plausible? A surprise first attack with chemical weapons might kill a lot of Red Army soldiers, true. But to do that you´d need to reduce the transport of all other supplies needed by the army. Doesn´t seem really smart? During the time you transport the chemical shells, the German armies in the East get even less supplies than in OTL? You might transport gas shells to locations already overrun by the Red Army because the German units there had less ammunition.
And in return the German army from now on gets hit with Soviet biological and chemical weapons.
Not to mention that it probably won´t really weaken the Soviet Union since Germany can´t hit the factories in the Ural region for example.

Oh, and when the US and Britain come across the concentration camps in Germany (the real death camps were in Poland) they´ll find quite a lot of Germans there too. From Communists, Social Democrats, Catholic Center politicians to trade unionists, clerics, writers and artists. Just to mention it.

And if the US and Britain implement the Morgenthau plan they´ll be responsible for the death of up to 25 million people. From a newborn babe to the old retired people. Good luck selling that as the "good war".

By the way as far as I know, the Allies didn´t allow international aid organizations to enter Germany till sometime in 1946? Even deliveries of baby food donated by the Catholic church weren´t allowed into the occupation zones.
So late 1945 / early 1946 seems to come pretty close to your scenario? High death rate among babies, sick people, old people?
Just let it go on for - I don´t know? - 5 to 10 years then the surplus 25 million Germans might be dead?
 
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