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.