AH challenge: switch the post-WWII fates of Germany and Japan

Eurofed

Banned
Your challenge, with a post-1939 PoD, is to come up with a scenario where, by 1950, the OTL post-WWII fates of Germany and Japan are reversed.

Japan is divided into a Soviet-ruled Communist North (Hokkaido and northern Honshu) and a democratic South (rest of Honshu, Shikoku, and Kyushu), aligned to the Western bloc, with a Tokyo divided into Western and Soviet sectors. I don't see a feasible chance of Japan suffering the loss of a ethnically-cleansed sizable chunk of its national territory like OTL Germany suffered, so it is not a precondition of the scenario.

On the contrary Germany is united under a democratic government and a member of the Western bloc, and it has post-Anschluss borders minus East Prussia (lost to Poland).
 
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Emera78

Banned
No Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact. Germany is defeated in 1940 by France and England, Poland and Czechoslovakia get to share Silesia as their own occupation zone to extract reperations which are paid by 1950.
Japan is defeated by Britain and USA after intervention in Chinese War, while Soviets jump in to take their share of booty.
 
Simple in a nutshell:

Japan declared war on USSR around the time as Germany. Nazi Germany did better on the Eastern front, even taking all land around Moscow (if not Moscow altogether).
Japan then hesitated to declare war on the US, which it never did.
A relatively small fleet of German U-boats made it to New York harbor, on a mission to scout out the area in preparation for an invasion (a dream of Hitler's which seemed withing reach for megalomaniac -- though in reality was light years out of reach). Their positions were compromised by tankers, which had to be sunk... along with all ships including patrol boats in the vicinity.
The US responded by declaring war on the Germans and in effect, the Japanese.

Because US entered the war later, it took longer for them to take Japan and less time spent on the Manhattan project.
However, they had an infinitely large head start against the Soviets in the European theater.

BOOM!

Now do my AH challenge!!!!!:rolleyes:
 
One 1941 POD might be to have something go mildly wrong with the prototype University of Chicago nuclear reactor, possibly causing the U.S to re-evaluate the use of Graphite as a Neutron Moderator, thus delaying the Manhattan Project by a year or so...
In a extreme case, this could cause the U.S to go down the German route, & use Di-Duterium Monoxide (Heavy Water) as a combination coolant/moderator...
 
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