AHC: Make WW2 in Europe as Drawn Out and Bloody as Possible

TheTuck

Banned
With a POD at the end of the Battle of Stalingrad, Hitler realizes that there is no way possible to either win the War or negotiate any kind of peace where he survives, so he decides to spite the world by making the war as bloody and nightmarish as possible, what strategic and tactical decisions should he make to accomplish this? One possibility that I'm particularly curious about is Hitler deciding to use Sarin and other Nerve Agents, how much could the Germans make and how deadly would it be if Hitler went all out on using it?
 
Id say Cal bear did a good enough job in the Anglo-American Nazi War
leaving aside the plausibility of that TL, its PoD is BEFORE the end of the battle of Stalingrad.

as for my 2 cents, based entirely on German actions and not Allied mistakes

- start building the Panther line early
- pull back from Tunisia
- somehow concentrate enough forces in Sicily to defeat op. Husky without scaring off the Allies from invading in the first place; this should keep Italy in the war
- cancel Op. Zitadelle at the last possible second and then get lucky by correctly guessing the location of the main Soviet counteroffensives
- launch Op. Eisenhammer as early as possible
- get immensely lucky with the weather when Op. Overlord begins AND guess the location of the Allied landings

Honestly, I don't see how you could prolong things a whole lot further. The strategic bomber offensive was crippling Germany's entire transportation infrastructure and the oil reserves necessary for at least some kind of maneuver warfare in the east were running out anyway, which keeping a lot more tanks and trucks in the field by carefully husbanding them will only exacerbate.

I'd say the winter of '45 is about the absolute latest. Maybe spring '46 if the Norway garrison refuses to surrender for whatever reason.
 

TheTuck

Banned
Maybe spring '46 if the Norway garrison refuses to surrender for whatever reason.
Could the Norway garrison really hold out that long if the rest of Nazi occupied Europe fell? Would it be more viable than an Alpine redoubt?
 
Could the Norway garrison really hold out that long if the rest of Nazi occupied Europe fell? Would it be more viable than an Alpine redoubt?
in the sense that it would take some time before the Americans redeployed their forces from central Germany and assemble an invasion fleet, do preparatory bombing etc.
 
He may be able to, instead of focusing all his forces on the battle of the bulge, spread out his forces and savour the fuel and tanks. But tbh at the same time as others have noted there wasn't a vast amount he could actually do due to the bombing of Germany. I suppose one idea he could also do would be throwing vast amounts of resources at the various German ground to air missile systems and investing in more jet aircraft to destroy the tactical and strategic bombers, but this may also fail. Tbh after Stalingrad - or even earlier perhaps - Germany was pretty screwed.
 
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