AHC: Make Nazis win WW2

Redcoat

Banned
with a POD no earlier than October of 1939.
This question has been done to death tbh. There's like a million different ways to do this POD.

1.) AANW situation (Nazis win Stalingrad thanks to a few more units which makes Stalin go ballistic and shoot his generals)

2.) Hitler listens to his generals

3.) Launch the invasion May 15th

4.) No North Africa detour to dry up troops

(This is just to make Barbarossa succeed)

5.) Don't declare war on the U.S.

6.) What Wendell said

7.) Make the Atlantic wall even more impenetrable/have D-Day be discovered beforehand (To keep the WAllies out)

8.) Have Stalin die at any point of the war


Yeah you get my point. But you're new so I'll cut some slack here.
 
There is evidence Stalin was willing to do a Brest Litovsk deal with Germany earlier in Barbarossa, the validity of this evidence is debated, but it exists, I will thus make my scenario based on this, as I believe it provides for the easiest Nazi victory requiring the least PODs, so here it is:

- Hitler dies of a heart attack during in July 1941

- Goring takes over and begins negotiations with the USSR immediately

- By October-November a deal is made for a Brest-Litovsk 2.0 with possible further territories granted to Germany than the original B-L

- Despite the fact that Germany saved its own ass by doing this, this is seen by the entire world as Germany crushing the USSR in months

- The UK cant handle the utter despair of AGAIN being alone against an even more invincible looking Germany. What will pass in infamy as the "Brest-Livosk Cabinet Crisis" occurs, which may or may knock the UK out of the war.

- Pearl Harbor happens

- Goring strongly condemns Japan, breaks off the alliance and possibly declares war on Japan, knowing there is zero risk for Germany in doing this.

- FDR has no possible way of justifying war on Germany and its forced on a solo war with Japan.

- If the UK did not make peace with Germany in the Brest-Litovsk crisis, it does now having now no hope of the US bailing it out.

- The war in Europe ends with a clear German victory, the war in the Pacific goes on, ending in with the US occupying Japan as in our timeline.
 
is full of inaccuracies

For example? Honestly, entire threads have been made centered around a historian claiming X or Y.

Regardless its interesting AH material and it is not outside of the realm of possibility either.

With the Wehrmacht inflicting defeat after defeat and looking like a steamroll into Moscow was unavoidable, it is very well within the realm of possibility that Stalin, who lost his shit as soon as he found out about the invasion, will cut a deal if approached by the new Fuhrer, even if you dismiss the claim.
 
  1. Make the Nazis prioritize their bioweapons. Immediately.
  2. Mass produce anthrax spores
  3. Especially advantageous, is if the Nazis figure out to add bentonite or silica gel (?) while also milling the spores to better weaponize them
  4. Sometime after the fall of France, the sooner the better before the US and USSR gets to heavily involved, dump the anthrax over London, etc. Millions could die as a result.
That is the only way I can think of. Otherwise, either the Americans, British, Soviets or a combination thereof will defeat the Nazis. Chemical weapons, just won't cut it. Nuclear weapons are out of reach.
 
  1. Make the Nazis prioritize their bioweapons. Immediately.
  2. Mass produce anthrax spores
  3. Especially advantageous, is if the Nazis figure out to add bentonite or silica gel (?) while also milling the spores to better weaponize them
  4. Sometime after the fall of France, the sooner the better before the US and USSR gets to heavily involved, dump the anthrax over London, etc. Millions could die as a result.
That is the only way I can think of. Otherwise, either the Americans, British, Soviets or a combination thereof will defeat the Nazis. Chemical weapons, just won't cut it. Nuclear weapons are out of reach.
Could you provide sources on when these inventions were done IOTL. And how technically/conceptually complicated they were at that time?
 
You could tweak a few things that could give the Germans a better chance.

-Dunkirk results in a massacre

-Winter war is won by Finland

-Turkey joins the Axis

-Equatorial Africa joins the Germans side

-Italy's invasion of Greece succeeds

-Alan Turing never cracks the German codes

-Tobruk siege ends easily, and the Germans and Italians take Egypt

-Hitler digs in his forces for Winter and waits till spring to continue the offensive

-Japanese win at Khakhalin Gol

-Hitler never declares war on America
 
  1. Make the Nazis prioritize their bioweapons. Immediately.
  2. Mass produce anthrax spores
  3. Especially advantageous, is if the Nazis figure out to add bentonite or silica gel (?) while also milling the spores to better weaponize them
  4. Sometime after the fall of France, the sooner the better before the US and USSR gets to heavily involved, dump the anthrax over London, etc. Millions could die as a result.
That is the only way I can think of. Otherwise, either the Americans, British, Soviets or a combination thereof will defeat the Nazis. Chemical weapons, just won't cut it. Nuclear weapons are out of reach.

Both sides already had more than enough chemical weapons to do serious damage to each others civillian populations, theres a reason neither used it
Edit: format
 
For example? Honestly, entire threads have been made centered around a historian claiming X or Y.

The claims aren't made by a historian but by Pavel Sudoplatov, a former lieutenant general in Soviet intelligence, in his "autobiography" Special Tasks. The book has been panned for its problems, arguably down to the fact that large parts weren't written by Sudoplatov but also because of his rather foggy memory. For example, claiming that Leo Szilard and Robert Oppenheimer were Soviet agents and asserting that Denmark was liberated hy the Soviet Union.
 

BlondieBC

Banned
German wins falls into categories.

Defeat UK first: If Hitler does not invade the Soviet Union and Stalin waits until Germany is clearly losing to enter the war, Germany likely wins: Pick your POD. Hitler changes mind, Hitler dies, etc.

Japan Options: Japan does not enter the war. Russia was in pretty bad shape IOTL before Stalingrad. Approaching starvation rations even with Lend Lease. Recruitment issues in the near future. Host of problems only solved by lend lease. If Japan backs down, especially if this is early in 1941, then the USA will never switch to the full war economy, so Lend Lease supplies are likely less. It could be as simple a POD as Japan decides it on the North first strategy. Or as simple as mucking around a bit but understanding that taking Indochina cause a oil blockade. Or just focusing on elimination of more Chinese before the next stage.

Italy stays Neutral: Good chance enough butterflies here to win. Just takes a little hesitation on Italy part.

War with Soviets: This is what most people want to see when they ask for this POD, and since we have two really disaster events from the Nazi perspective, it is a much harder POD. It probably requires a series of POD but it is possible. I think naval victory by Germany is much more likely than the average person on this board. But I tend to focus more on doctrine and leadership. IMO, the greatest failure of the German Navy in both wars was lack of understanding of how to use the fleet. Just as good as the German army tended to be at the small things, the navy tended to make small mistakes. In the WW2 Example, you need a plan for the UK in case France falls. So have a good set of officers (under 10) start planning this in November 1939. There are bunch of little stuff. Hold back all weapons for one big shock impact, the magnetic mines come to mind. Extra training and test, or more specifically, better training and testing. Things like the torpedo problem can be solved. Might be enough time to get some more torpedoes from Italy. Have a better understanding of UK logistics. Maybe get another rotor or two added to the coding machines since such a big problem in previous war. BTW, by 1916, high ranking admirals believe the code books were taken and identified the source.

And to what people really want. A land win with a war that looks very much like ours and same basic decisions. So lets get to the small stuff, I think it would add up. So let's say Hitler has a chronic infection or worse drug habits and misses a few dozen days of meetings where competent staff officers make blah decisions instead of mistakes.

  • Dunkirk. Stop order is not given. Few hundred K more lost troops. Now yes, many of these men would be years before they get back into the war, but it has a huge morale impact early. It may make the UK Flag Officers less aggressive. Might make FDR a bit more defensive. And by 1943, you will see the land impacts of these men not in the order of battle.
  • Do a better BoB. Not looking for brilliance, but better. Have Goering/Hitler pick a target, any target. I said i like naval targets, but it could be wiping out the factories of southern England. I also need the planes lost later in the war, and the pilots. LW was run down after fall of France, maybe another couple weeks refitting before BoB starts. And maybe end a couple of weeks early.
  • So we have a big improvement here, and Hitler made two small decisions differently. He did not issue a stop order at Dunkirk since his doctor messed up his injection that day. And a bit later and just like in Poland, Hitler vacillated on his decision. Right before the BoB was to start, Hitler decide that X would be the target and the LW took two weeks to reset plans. Notice I have only flipped two little things. Hitler waivers and makes the default decision at Dunkirk. He lets the Heer keep going. And Hitler then makes an arbitrary "I can win the war by X in Southern England" decision.
  • Now lets roll to the east in 1941. I think overall the Germans did great in 1941 so talk of attacking earlier is too risky. So is IMO going straight for Moscow by not doing the encirclement in the South. But I also don't think that it is impossible to do better. We have dozens of POD's on this topic. Moving a battle here are there by a couple weeks. Moving a few divisions to from one attack to another. We need to give the Germans another win. For discussions, I will go with the starvation or fall of Leningrad. We have had discussion of using paratroopers, attacking different days, attacking different routes. Does not matter much, as long as the Germans hold enough to the east to starve the city death. Leningrad will fall in early 1942. Finns will take over holding the city. Murmansk Lend Lease is shut down. Germans have some extra corp free up in mid 1942, maybe a couple of armies.
  • Now we need a big cumulative impact. A big win to get Germany over the hump. Attacking Moscow is tempting since Leningrad falls, but lets keep OTL War Plan. The soviets are almost starving, morale is low, and manpower issues are showing up. And this is OTL. We basically need the German lines to hold on the Volga over the winter of 1942/43 with a big Russian loss in the winter offensive. We have a more planes and experience pilots. We have enough extra units to hold the line. Assume these men are wisely deployed and we have a good reserve for Army Group South. The UK is feeling the loss of men at Dunkirk now, so so other fronts are doing better for Germany. North Africa is sucking less resources.
  • And we get to April 1943 where there are two more major soviet losses. Starvation is wide spread due to less lend lease food. Morale at the line or at the top breaks, the soviets effectively collapse and effectively leave the war. Chaos reins on the soviet side.
  • And I think we have just crossed the line for a very marginal Nazi win by a nose.



We get a lot of Hitler never changes his mind, which is really saying, I will not allow POD allowed in almost all other ATL. And yes, without POD, we get OTL results.
 
Have Churchill die in the Taxi Accident in 1931. Butterflies could include the 1938-39 mini depression being worse, leading to a President Taft in 1940.
 
Never declare war on the USA. Concentrate on the Ukraine and the Caucasus in 1941, capture the oilfields while denying it to the Soviets. Nazis attack up north in 1942, gain hundreds of miles of fertile Soviet land. By 1943 the Soviets run out of oil and food and are forced to sue for peace. The peace settlement will look something like Brest-Livtotsk. Britain will also sue for peace once it is clear that liberation of Europe will require tens of millions of casualties.
 
We get a lot of Hitler never changes his mind, which is really saying, I will not allow POD allowed in almost all other ATL. And yes, without POD, we get OTL results.

I would say it's more the opposite, POD's that mount to nothing much more than 'Hitler was crazy so he just changes his mind'. Probably up until 43-44' there was a malign, twisted logic to Germany's strategic decision making. Add to this the constraints imposed by the limitations of the German economy, the fact that the war Germany entered in 1939 was almost the opposite of what Hitler had hoped for, i.e. the USSR as an ally and the UK as an enemy and it's actually quite hard to come up with a good POD for a better German performance let alone a victory.

I think the best POD's are those based on events outside Germany. If Giuseppe Zangara kills Roosevelt, if Churchill gets killed by that taxi in Washington then maybe you undermine the whole opposition to Germany, but those predate 1939.

Best case scenario for Germany to 'win' based on internal events is after the fall of France Hitler dies, the new leadership make a remarkably generous offer as far as withdrawing in the west, getting out of the Channel Coast for one thing, in exchange for recognition of Germany's conquests in the east and access to international markets. If the Winter War still happens Germany whips up anti-Soviet resentment, trying to get the British leadership, who were largely anti-communist, to commit to some sort of action against the USSR. In effect creating the anti-comintern pact Hitler had fantasized about. Bringing Britain onto Germany's side or at the very least getting the UK to be neutral seems to me to be the optimal solution for a German victory in the long run.
 
Could you provide sources on when these inventions were done IOTL. And how technically/conceptually complicated they were at that time?

Technically, was it impossible? Far from it. Conceptually? The Nazis were not competent enough. They had everything they might have needed, though. For example,

The history of AEROSIL®

The shortage of raw materials and resources on our planet has been a hotly debated topic for several decades. The ”black gold” in particular inspired many to become active researchers. The people at former Degussa, now Evonik Industries, were also enthusiastic about the idea of one day finding a substitute for oil. This is why, in 1941, they began to develop a white filling material for the tire industry as a substitute for industrial carbon black, which, up to then, could only be produced from oil. Just twelve months on, having created high-temperature flame hydrolysis, they succeeded in producing the first ultrafine-particle pyrogenic silica. Their vision became reality and the brand known as AEROSIL® was born.

Take this, and put it and anthrax spores in a spray dryer. You'd need to check it with an electron microscope. But, there you'd have something extremely dangerous that could be more than sufficient to kill millions of British.

Both sides already had more than enough chemical weapons to do serious damage to each others civillian populations, theres a reason neither used it
Edit: format

Mustard gas wasn't going to make the British capitulate, sorry, but no way.
 
Maybe if Mannerheim was overthrown and the Finnish had marched won Leningrad it could end the siege in the north and possibly help the nazi capture Moscow.
 
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