AH Challenge: Largest Post-WW2 Germany

Just a thought.

Your challenge, if you choose to accept it, is to, with a POD no earlier then the German declaration of waron the US, make the largest Germany possible. But here's the trick: the Germans still have to lose in the same way that they lost in OTL: Hitler commits suicide, unconditional surrender, etc.

How large a Germany is possible?
 
Well, If Austria isn't reunited as a neutral state, and instead remains split between occupation zones, then we could have East Austria/Vienna merged with East Germany/Berlin and West Austria/Vienna merged with West Germany/Berlin. Then we get a reunion as OTL and it's Germany and Austria as one nation. You're certainly not going to see Germany East of the Oder though.
 
This is my idea of a Post-War Germany, but this is unlikely, but still possible.

Europe1950.png


Most of the Cold-War borders remain the same, except West Germany gets portions of the Sudetenland.

In this scenario, Germany losses East Prussia, of which all goes to Poland. Berlin and Vienna are split as in our Time-Line, but Austria and the Sudetenland are included in East/West Germany.

Here is the world in modern day with this Germany.

Europe1991.png




Pretty much, Cold War goes as Normal, except the internal borders of the Warsaw Pact are somewhat changed. Germany becomes still powerful in a Post-Cold War Scenario, but by 2010, things are as they are now.
 

Eurofed

Banned
Well, If Austria isn't reunited as a neutral state, and instead remains split between occupation zones, then we could have East Austria/Vienna merged with East Germany/Berlin and West Austria/Vienna merged with West Germany/Berlin. Then we get a reunion as OTL and it's Germany and Austria as one nation. You're certainly not going to see Germany East of the Oder though.

I subscribe this solution if we are to keep the OTL end of the war in place. IMO the best PoD to realize this is Stalin losing confidence in the perspective of neutral united Austria as a lure for West Germany, and hence supporting a Communist takeover of East Austria/Vienna in 1949-50. IIRC there was a Communist strike in 1950 that could easily blossom into a coup in the Soviet zone. The democratic Austrian government and poltical parties would flee to the Western-occupied zone and set up West Austria. America is by then fully in Cold War mode and would support a second unification of West Germany and West Austria to make a sturdier anti-Communist bulwark. East Austria would either be unified with East Germany or thrown in a 'Danubian' confederation with Hungary.

The rest of the Cold War would unfold much like OTL, only with both Berlin and Vienna being divided cities and sporting a Wall. When the Soviet bloc collapses, you would have the reunification of Grossdeutchsland. :cool::D

In order to get more, you would have either a) to make Valkyrie successful, which is compatible with part of the OP (ITTL the most likely outcome is a de jure unconditional surrender, but de facto a conditional lenient peace like the one Italy and Japan got with Germany accepting Allied occupation, but keeping Pomerania, Silesia, and Austria) but not with Hitler's suicide or b) Germany is more successful in 1940-44, manages to force the Soviet Union to a compromise peace and defeats landings in Italy and France, and is only defeated by the nukes in 1946. In such a case, it could negotiate accepting surrender, but keeping Pomerania, Silesia, Austria, Sudetenland, and Danzig. This could satisfy the call for both a de jure unconditional surrender and for Hitler taking his life (he chooses suicide when the united generals refuse to obey him in the face of nuclear onslaught).
 
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I subscribe this solution if we are to keep the OTL end of the war in place. IMO the best PoD to realize this is Stalin losing confidence in the perspective of neutral united Austria as a lure for West Germany, and hence supporting a Communist takeover of East Austria/Vienna in 1949-50. IIRC there was a Communist strike in 1950 that could easily blossom into a coup in the Soviet zone. The democratic Austrian government and poltical parties would flee to the Western-occupied zone and set up West Austria. America is by then fully in Cold War mode and would support a second unification of West Germany and West Austria to make a sturdier anti-Communist bulwark. East Austria would either be unified with East Germany or thrown in a 'Danubian' confederation with Hungary.

The rest of the Cold War would unfold much like OTL, only with both Berlin and Vienna being divided cities and sporting a Wall. When the Soviet bloc collapses, you would have the reunification of Grossdeutchsland. :cool::D

In order to get more, you would have either a) to make Valkyrie successful, which is compatible with part of the OP (ITTL the most likely outcome is a de jure unconditional surrender, but de facto a conditional lenient peace with Germany accepting Allied occupation, but keeping Pomerania, Silesia, and Austria) or b) Germany is more successful in 1940-44, manages to force the Soviet Union to a compromise peace and defeats landings in Italy and France, and is only defeated by the nukes in 1946. In such a case, it could negotiate accepting surrender, but keeping Pomerania, Silesia, Austria, Sudetenland, and Danzig.

Hmm... As always, your input is intelligent and interesting. So Germany can get Austria-but is there any hope for the terrotories given to Pland (Silesia, East Prussia etc.)?
 

Eurofed

Banned
Hmm... As always, your input is intelligent and interesting. So Germany can get Austria-but is there any hope for the terrotories given to Pland (Silesia, East Prussia etc.)?

Germany may keep Pomerania and Silesia if the Allies think that Germany deserves to keep them and/or making it lose the Eastern territories at all costs is too much trouble in comparison to the goal of ending the war ASAP. Hence, again, you need a Germany that is more successful than OTL on the battlefield and/or has partially redemeed in the eyes of the world by overthrowing the Nazis, with a PoD within early-mid 1944.

Alternatively, you would need the Allies, and much more importantly, Stalin thinking that the Poles don't need or deserve extra territory to make up for the Kresy. A possible PoD would be the Poles throwing a large uprising against Soviet occupation and/or Stalin annexing Poland as a SSR. In such a case East Prussia would still go to the USSR but East Germany would keep Pomerania and Silesia.

Yet another alternative could be FDR losing the 1944 election (perhaps news on his poor health leak out and Dewey throws a better campaign), the Americans push out harder and reach Berlin, Prague, and Vienna first, meeting the Soviets on the Oder. Dewey enforces occupation zones in Germany on the basis of "facts on the ground" and Pomerania and Silesia become the Soviet occupation zone, while Brandenburg, Saxony, and Austria go to the WAllies. Stalin would not give his slice of Germany to Poland ITTL, in order to keep a toehold in Germany (perhaps he lets Poland keep Lwow and East Prussia as compensation, or again he simply annexes Poland).

Letting Germany keep East Prussia is trickier and requires a 1943 PoD. You either need the anti-Nazi conspiracy of march 1943 to succeed, or Germany managing to win the battles of Summer-Fall 1943 on the Eastern front, pushing the USSR to a separate peace in 1943-44, and defeating the landings in Italy and France, and only being defeated by nukes.

To sum it up, as I see it:

PoD in 1945 or later: OTL Germany plus Austria and Stettin.

PoD in 1944: OTL Germany plus Austria, Pomerania, Silesia.

PoD in 1943 or earlier: OTL Germany plus Austria, Pomerania, Silesia, Sudetenland, Danzig.
 
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Germany may keep Pomerania and Silesia if the Allies think that Germany deserves to keep them and/or making it lose the Eastern territories at all costs is too much trouble in comparison to the goal of ending the war ASAP. Hence, again, you need a Germany that is more successful than OTL on the battlefield and/or has partially redemeed in the eyes of the world by overthrowing the Nazis, with a PoD within early-mid 1944.

Alternatively, you would need the Allies, and much more importantly, Stalin thinking that the Poles don't need or deserve extra territory to make up for the Kresy. A possible PoD would be the Poles throwing a large uprising against Soviet occupation and/or Stalin annexing Poland as a SSR. In such a case East Prussia would still go to the USSR but East Germany would keep Pomerania and Silesia.

Yet another alternative could be FDR losing the 1944 election (perhaps news on his poor health leak out and Dewey throws a better campaign), the Americans push out harder and reach Berlin, Prague, and Vienna first, meeting the Soviets on the Oder. Dewey enforces occupation zones in Germany on the basis of "facts on the ground" and Pomerania and Silesia become the Soviet occupation zone, while Brandenburg, Saxony, and Austria go to the WAllies. Stalin would not give his slice of Germany to Poland ITTL, in order to keep a toehold in Germany (perhaps he lets Poland keep Lwow and East Prussia as compensation, or again he simply annexes Poland).

Letting Germany keep East Prussia is trickier and requires a 1943 PoD. You either need the anti-Nazi conspiracy of march 1943 to succeed, or Germany managing to win the battles of Summer-Fall 1943 on the Eastern front, pushing the USSR to a separate peace in 1943-44, and defeating the landings in Italy and France, and only being defeated by nukes.

The idea of a Polish Uprising is a good one-it may go a long way to dispel the "we were beaten on by the Nazis" image.
 

Eurofed

Banned
The idea of a Polish Uprising is a good one-it may go a long way to dispel the "we were beaten on by the Nazis" image.

Of course, you could mix up ideas by making secondary PoDs butterflies of the primary one:

e.g. the Poles throw up an uprising against the Soviets, the Red Army is slightly delayed and the Americans occupy Berlin, Prague, and Vienna and reach the Oder. Stalin decides to annex uppity Poland as an SSR, throwing Lwow and East Prussia in it, but keeping Pomerania and Silesia as East Germany. Americans decide to enforce facts on the ground and keep Brandenburg, Saxony, and Austria.

Or alternatively, Soviets still reach the Elbe but Stalin still decides to set up East Austria as part of East Germany to buff it up.
 
PoD in 1945 or later: OTL Germany plus Austria.

Yep, that is likely, however, the city of Stettin (and the small strip of land between OTL borders and the Oder) may be in there as well, since it a) was considered to be on the Oder-Neisse Line and b) the Allies originally considered it to remain German and make it a second Frankfurt an der Oder. Ultimately in 1947, Stalin decided that his Polish puppet needed a bit more and thus handed over Stettin to the Poles without (Western) Allied permission. Having Stettin remaining German would result in circa 300,000 more people for the (East) German economy. Yay!


Overwise, it really depends on how the Allies see Germany during the war. If there is, according to the (Western) Allies a slight hint of human decency in the German mind, you can essentially have Germany keep most of its territories pre-WW2, except those who have a relativly large percentage of Poles.
 

Eurofed

Banned
Yep, that is likely, however, the city of Stettin (and the small strip of land between OTL borders and the Oder) may be in there as well, since it a) was considered to be on the Oder-Neisse Line and b) the Allies originally considered it to remain German and make it a second Frankfurt an der Oder. Ultimately in 1947, Stalin decided that his Polish puppet needed a bit more and thus handed over Stettin to the Poles without (Western) Allied permission. Having Stettin remaining German would result in circa 300,000 more people for the (East) German economy. Yay!

This is wholly possible, of course. :D Again, it requires Stalin to think that his Polish subjects don't need or deserve any break.

Overwise, it really depends on how the Allies see Germany during the war. If there is, according to the (Western) Allies a slight hint of human decency in the German mind, you can essentially have Germany keep most of its territories pre-WW2,

This requires the German Resistance to be successful, essentially. Just have the bombs in March 1943 or July 1944 to go off as planned. Hitler survived several assassination attempts by the sheerest unbelievable bouts of luck.

except those who have a relativly large percentage of Poles.

Not a relevant issue IMO, since those areas had voted to stay in Germany in 1921. At the most, southern East Prussia could go to Poland.
 

Deleted member 1487

Or have the German anti-Fascist and pro-Socialist resistance be bigger. The Soviets fielded a division of German communists throughout the war, which proved they did trust some Germans. Have the German socialists consider the Soviets the least of all evils and turn to them, allowing for a greater German contribution to the Soviet war effort and greater resistance in Germany and pro-Soviet sentiment and the Germans could very well be allowed to keep more.

The reason the Poles were given so much of Germany was to keep them scared of Germany. If the Poles thought the Germans were likely to come to collect their territory at some point, which wasn't completely decided against until reunification, they would be forced to rely on Russia for protection, making them more loyal. However, if, as other posters have suggested, the Poles don't fight FOR the Soviets, but rather against them instead of the Germans, then there will be punishment post war that will mean a much smaller Poland and a larger East Germany. This kind of behavior would take greater foresight on the part of the population: Germany is already retreating, let the Russians do the fighting and fight them once the Germans have been pushed back.

Remember though that Russia had an irrational fear of Germany even until the 90's (though I think much of the opposition to reunification had nothing to do with fear of German military might...), so a large Germany even post war is unlikely to be in the cards, so long as the Soviets have a fear of German strength.
 
Strangely enough, I had thought of a scenario similar to this.

Maybe a German revolt goes much better, with a kind of small scale civil war going on, I believe the anti-Nazi revolts were mostly pro-Western but anti-Soviet, so we might see them resist the Russians while welcoming the Western allies, maybe encouraging a Polish revolt, as mentioned previously, to stave off the Russians. Possibly they could capture Hitler if it does well enough, and probable excecute him. Then, they can go down heroicly against the Soviets, while the Allies arrive in Berlin slightly before the Russians, and arriving in the Sudentenland to see the German population cheering them.

Then, we might see East Germany getting Pomerania and Silesia, but only half Brandenburg so that the Berlin divide will actually be the border of the two states. The Sudetenland would be kept, probably being shared between West Austria and East Germany, while Poland would be given East Prussia as compensation. Then, to sort out the ethic problem, all Germans not in the new German territory would be packed to the eastern borders, while those Poles and Czechs who remain can go to their respective nations.

This combination of PoDs could probably work with those maps, with just a few edits. Very Susanoist for me to say so, I know, but such a Germany, after reuniting, would have very nice aesthetic borders.:D
 
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