AHC: Nazi Berlin captured by Jews

Your challenge, should you choose to accept it, is to have a Jewish rebel group, supported by the Allies, successfully capture Berlin in 1945.

Bonus points if their leader is Anne Frank.

More bonus points if Hitler is captured alive.

(I frankly think this is impossible without ASBs?)
 
Why would a teenage girl with no prior military training or combat experience be leading a military unit? Concentration camp prisoners who escaped or were liberated by the allied advance wouldn't be in a physical condition to fight, the human body would need time to recover from being nearly starved to death, as well as fighting whatever diseases spread in the crowded, unsanitary conditions created by the nazis. Camp prisoners who were alive when the allies arrived could be gradually nursed back to health, but probably not on a timescale that would allow them to see combat in WW2.

The western allies might have been willing to endorse the creation of a Jewish military legion like they did in WW1 under Trumpeldor, but it wouldn't be involved in the capture of Berlin if it was formed by the allies. The Big 3 had agreed to let the Red Army take Berlin. Stalin's antisemitism and Marxist-Leninist ideology makes Soviet support for this hypothetical unit more or less impossible. OTL, the postwar USSR pretty much refused to recognize the disproportionate suffering of European Jews, to they point where they almost built a sports stadium on top of the Babi War massacre outside Kiev.

This belongs in the writers' forum.
 
The western allies might have been willing to endorse the creation of a Jewish military legion like they did in WW1 under Trumpeldor...

You mean like the British Army's Jewish Brigade?

Stalin's antisemitism and Marxist-Leninist ideology makes Soviet support for this hypothetical unit more or less impossible.

Stalin supported the creation of Israel. Czechoslovakia, which was under effective Communist control, was the major supplier of arms to the nascent Jewish state. Also, the entire Communist bloc voted for the Palestine partition plan that created Israel.

A "Jewish legion" in the Soviet Army would be unlikely, but not impossible. It would probably be of no more than corps strength, and Soviet corps were much smaller than in armies of other nations. The "Jewish Corps" might spearhead the Soviet drive into Berlin, but the overall attack was made by two Fronts (a Front being two echelons larger than a corps).
 
You mean like the British Army's Jewish Brigade?

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Yes, the Jewish Legion that fought at Gallipoli under Jabotinsky and Trumpeldor during WW1. Jabotinsky supported a close alliance with the British on the logic that portraying the Jewish settlements as beneficial to British interests in the Middle East would result in support for a British state. It's plausible that Israel might have even become a British Dominion in another timeline.
Stalin supported the creation of Israel. Czechoslovakia, which was under effective Communist control, was the major supplier of arms to the nascent Jewish state. Also, the entire Communist bloc voted for the Palestine partition plan that created Israel.

A "Jewish legion" in the Soviet Army would be unlikely, but not impossible. It would probably be of no more than corps strength, and Soviet corps were much smaller than in armies of other nations. The "Jewish Corps" might spearhead the Soviet drive into Berlin, but the overall attack was made by two Fronts (a Front being two echelons larger than a corps).
The Soviet state had a strange love-hate relationship with its Jewish citizens. In the twenties there were official statements against antisemitism and an attempt to form a secularized Yiddish culture, but Stalin began a major antisemitic purge in the eastern bloc in the late forties.
For a time he supported Israeli independence because he thought it would become a socialist state, but by '48 he was going after "rootless cosmopolitans" and executing Yiddish language writers. Stalin's antisemitism waxed and waned during the period he was in power.
The rootless cosmopolitans talk set the stage for "we're not antisemitic, we're just anti-zionist" messaging after the Six Day War.
"Zionism is a Weapon of Imperialism" May Day parade float .jpg
 
Why would a teenage girl with no prior military training or combat experience be leading a military unit? Concentration camp prisoners who escaped or were liberated by the allied advance wouldn't be in a physical condition to fight, the human body would need time to recover from being nearly starved to death, as well as fighting whatever diseases spread in the crowded, unsanitary conditions created by the nazis. Camp prisoners who were alive when the allies arrived could be gradually nursed back to health, but probably not on a timescale that would allow them to see combat in WW2.

This belongs in the writers' forum.
Don't give Hollywood any ideas please..
 
Berlin was defended by hundreds of thousands of Germans. The largest concentration of Jewish soldiers was a brigade, maybe you could get that up to a division with some different events. Could such a unit participate in the battle of Berlin? Maybe, but they'll only be a small part of the wider battle, and have no real effect outside of photos that are later admired as grimly ironic.
 
More likely would be Poles. For whatever purpose the Allis concentrate their assorted Polish armies for the final attack the Berlin. 300,000 pissed off Poles converging into the city.
 
More likely would be Poles. For whatever purpose the Allis concentrate their assorted Polish armies for the final attack the Berlin. 300,000 pissed off Poles converging into the city.

The Poles (1st Polish Army and as I understand 2nd Army as well) did participate in Berlin operation. To quote from wiki, "Poland's official Flag Day is held each year on 2 May, the last day of the battle in Berlin, when the Polish Army hoisted its flag on the Berlin Victory Column".
 
I don't know how plausible this is but you could have the British be willing to train Ethiopian Jews who've made the Aliyah to Mandatory Palestine, ending up in the Jewish Brigade where the Allied Powers (for whatever reason) utilize the JB in invading Germany and taking Berlin. Then again, none of this seems really plausible to me but there could always be a chance.
 
The Poles (1st Polish Army and as I understand 2nd Army as well) did participate in Berlin operation. To quote from wiki, "Poland's official Flag Day is held each year on 2 May, the last day of the battle in Berlin, when the Polish Army hoisted its flag on the Berlin Victory Column".

Correct. There were the British sponsored Armored Division, the Airborne Brigade, and at least two Infantry Divisions & a corps HQ. All spread between Italy and France. Toss in the Polish squadrons in the RAF, and other misc units & its another 100,000 angry Poles for the Mitzis to contemplate.
 
Correct. There were the British sponsored Armored Division, the Airborne Brigade, and at least two Infantry Divisions & a corps HQ. All spread between Italy and France. Toss in the Polish squadrons in the RAF, and other misc units & its another 100,000 angry Poles for the Mitzis to contemplate.

Sorry, I was talking about 2 Polish armies created and controlled by the Soviets. AFAIK, none of the British-supported Polish units participated in taking Berlin by the obvious reasons and hardly had any intention to get under the Soviet command for Berlin Operation.
 
Sorry, I was talking about 2 Polish armies created and controlled by the Soviets. AFAIK, none of the British-supported Polish units participated in taking Berlin by the obvious reasons and hardly had any intention to get under the Soviet command for Berlin Operation.

I understood you perfectly. My remarks about this are based on a hypothetical concentration of the Polish military formations present in the west.
 
I understood you perfectly. My remarks about this are based on a hypothetical concentration of the Polish military formations present in the west.

But, as you understand, this was a political impossibility for the "Western" Poles after experiences of which you are most probably well-aware. Not that adding in the last moment a force which would constitute less than 10% of the troops involved and had structure and weaponry different from those of the Red Army would necessary produce more benefits than the problems in the operation where even the troops of 2 participating fronts got mixed up and allegedly started shooting at each other.
 
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The western allies might have been willing to endorse the creation of a Jewish military legion like they did in WW1 under Trumpeldor, but it wouldn't be involved in the capture of Berlin if it was formed by the allies.

They did, the Jewish Brigade. It was raised in late 1944, formed mostly of more than 5,000 Jews from the Yishuv with Anglo-Jewish officers. It was largely seen as a "too little, too late" kind of creation. They did fight in World War II, but were limited to the Italian campaign.

I don't know how plausible this is but you could have the British be willing to train Ethiopian Jews who've made the Aliyah to Mandatory Palestine, ending up in the Jewish Brigade where the Allied Powers (for whatever reason) utilize the JB in invading Germany and taking Berlin. Then again, none of this seems really plausible to me but there could always be a chance.

Ethiopian Jews only came to Israel really in the 1980s and 1990s. While there were a few Ethiopian Jews who came to Mandatory Palestine with Yemenite Jews in the 1930s, there were not a lot of them.
 
Ethiopian Jews only came to Israel really in the 1980s and 1990s. While there were a few Ethiopian Jews who came to Mandatory Palestine with Yemenite Jews in the 1930s, there were not a lot of them.
Yeah, that's the main problem but it could be rectified by having Fascist Italy be more discriminatory against the Ethiopian Jews following the initial Occupation of Ethiopia and see larger numbers of them flee Italian-occupied Ethiopia where they end up in British Mandatory Palestine, a territory that already housed quite a few Ethiopians.
 
Yeah, that's the main problem but it could be rectified by having Fascist Italy be more discriminatory against the Ethiopian Jews following the initial Occupation of Ethiopia and see larger numbers of them flee Italian-occupied Ethiopia where they end up in British Mandatory Palestine, a territory that already housed quite a few Ethiopians.

The issue would be that Britain was actively preventing Jews from arriving into Mandatory Palestine from 1939 onward. While I'm sure Ethiopian Jews could get smuggled into Mandate Palestine, or find a way inside, the Royal Navy would prevent any mass migration.
 
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