Barbarossa and D-Day successful

Markus

Banned
That's why a peripheral strategy was mentioned. You know, the French Empire, for all its might and numbers, never managed to staunch the Spanish ulcer.



Both of which are quite a given.



You are aware, of course, that Lend Lease to the Soviet Union also cost the Western Allies some wads of money. All of that is now available.

The French could not defeat Spain because of the other front´s demands. But in case of a soviet collapse no other front could possibly be a similar drain on german resources.

With the Army having much less need for tanks and guns, the Air Force can and will get a larger share of german resources.

No LL on the one hand and no Eastern Front on the other would be a zero sum game, if LL had been a drain on the Allies just as big as the Eastern Front had been on the Germans.
 
Starvation can be fast or slow. If "fast", that's still a year or so, during which the riots will take place every day, everywhere. That's an awful lot of troops tied down, widespread destruction, production disrupted, and casualties for the German forces.

Wha..? How? When did anything like this occur in OTL that significantly impacted on Germany's abilities? Sure there were uprising in the ghettoes in Poland, but why would the rest of European Russia and the Caucasus present a different situation to what happened in Poland, the Ukraine and the Baltics & Belarus in OTL from 1941 onwards? Sure there will be partisans and riots and so forth, but it isn't like those things weren't be handled from 1941-1943 in the occupied areas already - and that too with an active front line. If there is no front line against an organized Soviet Red Army as must be assumed if Barbarossa is to be successful then all those troops that were previously too busy fighting at the front will now be free to carry out garrison duties. Anything less than a total capitulation (formal or effective capitulation) of the Red Army and Soviet Union cannot be considered a "successful" Barbarossa, because otherwise it would mean that there is the potential for the Red Army to counterattack as it did in OTL.

_Then_ things will cool down, but there will still be problems with production due to the extensive destruction and the shortage of workers.

But why would it be any different than in the occupied areas of the USSR from OTL from 1941-1943? During that time, millions of workers were actually sent (or volunteered) to go to Germany to make up the work shortage there and in OTL the occupied areas throughout Europe raised capital, part of which went towards the occupation costs.

If starvation is slow, then garrisons can be cut back – but that level of garrisoning, albeit reduced, will have to stay in place for a decade or so.

Right, but your thinking in terms of decades, but that's skipping a few steps. For any garrison to remain for a decade, it would require undisputed mastery of Europe, which in turn would require Germany to win the war, so they would need to transfer some of the troops to other areas such as France and North Africa (I doubt any Barbarossa can be successful after mid 1942 if everything else essentially remained the same in the TL) in order to ensure that the Allies have virtually no way of attacking the Continent.


As to the minor Axis allies' slices, of course the governments will ask for their own state's official slice. What I'm saying is that the local troops always took their own private unofficial slice too. In occupied France, that tended to amount to 15%. That applies to consumer goods alright, not to ammunition crates; but "consumer goods" definitely includes things like foodstuffs and coal. it weas tolerable to the Germans insofar as that went to the welfare of their own soldiers and families.

Except the reason why Romania and Hungary even sent troops for Barbarossa in the first place was to curry favour with Hitler in hopes of changing (for Romania) or keeping (for Hungary) the situation that existed in northern Transylvania. Romania also got territory from the Ukraine (Transnistria), but the Romanian and Hungarian soldiers went much farther than would have been required if they were simply there to obtain territory and control for their respective governments. In fact, Romania so wanted to curry Hitler's favour that it apparently sent more soldiers to die over there than even Italy - amounting to some 800,000 mobilized in total apparently. This competition to gain favour with Hitler wouldn't stop with a successful Barbarossa as long as there is still something either country could do that might swing Hitler's opinion.

And whether local troops took their own unofficial slice, why would Hitler even care? Whether the local troops taking an unofficial cut were German or Romanian, it wouldn't make a difference because the "cut" was unofficial anyway and something that wouldn't be approved of if it was brought to the attention of the tops of the chain of command. In northern France, there were only German troops and as you said, they still took a cut which amounted to 15%. It was only tolerable because it was probably too widespread and of not enough consequence for anything to be done about it. The same would apply elsewhere and since every Romanian or Hungarian soldier that remained in a support role for the temporary occupation of the USSR (until the Axis get an armistice with Britain and maybe the USA or at least until the threat of Allied invasion of Europe is effectively nil) would free up a German soldier for continued operation towards that end (ensuring victory in Europe), there is no reason why such unofficial cuts wouldn't be tolerated from Hungarian or Romanian troops as well since the benefits (ensuring victory in Europe) would be as great, if not greater than the costs (losing some coal and food, some of which would probably have gone to Romania and Hungary anyway, since whether or not their soldiers are in the USSR they still have to eat).


The whole of North Africa was fully in Allied hands by april 1943, actually. However, if the Germans are 100% focused on the USSR – which for me is a requisite if we want a victory by the end of 1942, otherwise we have OTL to show what will happen – they don't help the Italians out down there. In that case by mid 1942 if not earlier North Africa will be Spanish, Vichy French, and British.

How? What happens to change the situation in North Africa by mid 1942? As you yourself said earlier, it is impossible to expect that Germany would remove 100% of its forces from the USSR after victory and likewise it would be impossible to expect that they would do the opposite and remove 100% of their forces from elsewhere in order to obtain victory in the USSR. They had 150 divisions in the USSR (plus the armies of their puppets from Italy, Hungary, Romania, Slovakia and Croatia along with volunteers from Spain and elsewhere in Europe). In OTL the German losses from May 1941 to May 1942 were about 600,000 (Barbarossa and North Africa being the active fronts at the time). Unless changes are made in the TL from 1938 like Rhysz attempted then any changes made to Barbarossa will probably require Germany taking Moscow by late 1941/early 1942 and moving on to the A-A line by mid 1942. Otherwise they are going to end up losing momentum as in OTL and giving the Red Army time to counter and extending any possible victory into 1943...but which would probably require something like what was attempted at the Caucasus and Stalingrad (plus given Hitler's ego, he is still likely to want to capture Stalingrad and so set his own generals up for failure if the Soviets can turn Stalingrad into a focus point as happened in OTL). And if Barbarossa isn't dealt with by 1943 then North Africa is already in Allied hands and so is part of Italy, which means that Germany would get bogged down as in OTL fighting in Italy and probably not have enough momentum to take the initiative in the USSR especially as by 1943, we have to take into account the effect of continued lend-lease aid to Germany and the fact that Germany would not have been able to spend enough resources to counter the bombing threat from the USAF and RAF which would continue to drain at Germany's potential to actually make war and thus obtain victory in Barbarossa by 1943 in the first place.

Also in OTL, from May 1942 to May 1944 German losses amounted to 2.5 million, of which a significant majority came from the eastern front. Even if we assume 60% of that figure is from the eastern front that would be 1.5 million soldiers. If Germany lost an extra 400,000 by May 1942 in winning Barbarossa, the losses garnered afterwards from riots by lightly armed peasants, etc is unlikely to amount to 1 million soldiers between 1942 and 1944. Less soldiers dead would mean more left alive to garrison and to be used elsewhere.

By May 1943 in OTL Germany had an active strength of 9.5 million and a total loss of 1.7 million (for a total mobilization of 11.2 million). Butterfly away the haemorrhage that was the active eastern front by mid 1942 and Germany might have an extra 300-400,000 soldiers left alive for a total strength of 9.8 - 9.9 million. With extra soldiers to throw at North Africa (even if the Allies land which is still less likely with any Barbarossa victory as it would not be assured that Vichy French forces would not put up resistance as they successfully did in repelling an Allied attempt at Dakar - and now if Germany was successful in Russia, what reason would the Vichy French forces have for believing that the Allies could still overcome Germany?).


We're looking at a few years, you know. So keeping the friendly Italians and Romanians etc. losing weight _is_ going to be a problem. And in a perspective of say 3 years, you need to fill those granaries every year. Actually you need to protect the countryside from the wandering hordes of near-starved, desperate city dwellers who will be out to dig out the next year's sowings, to assault the local miller's cart and the isolated farm's pigsty and such like.

But no more of a problem than OTL and with the added bonus that they now have control over more granaries, etc than in OTL and without the expense of an active and massive eastern front using up resources like a sponge. And since they (the friendly Italians and Romanians in the rest of Axis Europe) would have and were fed in OTL and didn't die of starvation why would it be any different in TTL when they have control over more foodstuff?

As to the general's comment, it was heard all right. The Germans did not treat the Ukrainans kindly – that's why I always laugh when I read the proposed PODs of recruiting millions of happy Ukrainans to fight the Soviets. But neither did the Germans carry out the whole GPO policies or the even more nightmarish ideas some of the Nazi leadership floated at times. They did kill the Jews and most of the first batches of POWs, and they did slowly starve most the city dwellers. But they had to feed workers serving their war machine and above all they had to let the peasants eat insofar as they provided them with their quotas, since they were the ones closest to the source. The GPO provided that the whole Ostheer should be entirely fed at the expense of the occupied territory by the third year of the war (in the East), and that objective was never achieved, even though in 1943 the Germans were still controlling most of the areas from where most of the food came.

But in 1943 with a successful Barbarossa they would be controlling more land with less troops dead. Let's say that out of the 3.5 million sent into Barbarossa as 150 divisions, that Germany lost 1 million. Now the European USSR is 5 or 6 times the size of France but a substantial portion of it is more northerly than France (and more about the same latitude as Norway). In addition the European USSR is much less densely populated than France (and would be more so with refugees who flee east). France had 50 divisions in occupation according to an earlier post and Norway had 12 divisions in occupation (of which about 60% or 7 divisions were actually used to garrison Norway, while the other 5 were used to support Barbarossa). Norway though is 60% of the size of France but has a population of about 7-8% that of France. However the number of German divisions in Norway was 24% of what was in France (not 60% to conform with the territory) and about 14% of what was in France if only those actually garrisoning the country are considered. So the USSR will not require 5-6 times the numbers required for France and I suspect that given Germany could still mobilize more troops between 1942 and 1943 in OTL, that it could leave behind 60 divisions in occupation of the northern and central portions of the European USSR and 25 divisions in occupation of southern European USSR (especially the Caucasus). If they lost 1 million out of the original 3.5 million and thus lost about a third of the 150 divisions that leaves 85 divisions in the USSR and 25 divisions free to go elsewhere (plus the 200,000 Italian soldiers who would be free to go to Italy and North Africa). Those 25 divisions in the Caucasus could then provide perhaps 10-15 divisions to carry out an expedition into Iran which would was being occupied by the Soviets (now defeated) and the British (who had only 2 divisions and 3 brigades in that country). And since the British force in Iraq and in Syria and Lebanon were of similar sizes, the most that the British could probably draw into Iran from the rest of their middle east forces would be probably 6-7 divisions (apart from Palestine/Transjordan and Egypt - which would be robbing Peter to pay Paul). The British could draw soldiers from India directly, but that may impact on their efforts against the Japanese in India and Burma...

Throw in the soldiers raised between 1942 and 1943 from OTL then Germany could have an extra 400,000 to send to help garrison the USSR and to go to northern France and North Africa.
 
We would be looking to years of repeated Holodomors, with soldiers needed to guard granaries and slaughterhouses against half-starved rioters. What happened in the Warsaw Ghetto in OTL is probably a good comparison, only it will be multiplied a few tens of thousands times. Ugly and prosaic.

Thsis seems dead on. I think people forget that many in the West thought the Russians would collapse, yet didn't plan on giving up when they lost.
 
What if the PODs is Finland's involvement, Pearl Harbor and the Soviet-Japanese Neutrality Pact.

-Finland realizes that it would not be able to keep its newly reclaimed territories if Russia manages to recuperate. It sends some assitance during the Battle of Smolensk, Battle of Uman, Battle of Kiev, Battle of Moscow, etc. Unlike their German counterparts, they could be prepared for a long war extending into the war.
-Instead of taking outright military action against Russia and Mongolia that lead to the Soviet-Japanese border war in the OTL IJA and Kwantung decide to leave things as they are. They continue to have border skirmishes. They however, plan for an eventual invasion of Mongolia as Operation Barbarossa is underway.
-Instead of escalating things with the U.S., the IJA realizes it can get more materials through Soviet territories or trading directly with other Axis countries and begins planning a detailed invasion Mongolia with a three pronged attack, assisted by planes and bombers. Later on, it would move onto Siberia. Because of this, they move their doctrine becomes less focus on ships and more on planes.
-Russian forces are divided between fighting on two fronts against three armies. Since in this ATL the Soviet-Japanese Neutraility Pact wasn't signed, they still have troops stationed at the border away from the European Front and without soldiers with experience from the conflict (one of which being Georgiy Zhukov.)
-Operation Barbarossa is a technical victory for Germany, even though the Russian military and government is still intact. Leaves room for both sides to recuperate. Russian forces on the East Asian front manage to repel IJA and Kwantung from Siberia and Mongolia with help from Chinese forces but fails to take out its grip on Manchukuo due to reinforcements by the IJN and infant developments on Anti-Armor tactics.
-And then...*shrugs.* One of them accidentally attacks a U.S. ship?
 
What if the PODs is Finland's involvement, Pearl Harbor and the Soviet-Japanese Neutrality Pact.

-Instead of escalating things with the U.S., the IJA realizes it can get more materials through Soviet territories or trading directly with other Axis countries and begins planning a detailed invasion Mongolia with a three pronged attack, assisted by planes and bombers. Later on, it would move onto Siberia. Because of this, they move their doctrine becomes less focus on ships and more on planes.

But the Soviet forces in the region were probably enough to conduct a defensive action, and let's not kid ourselves; the resources Japan needs aren't available.
 
But the Soviet forces in the region were probably enough to conduct a defensive action, and let's not kid ourselves; the resources Japan needs aren't available.
Still, Soviet forces would be divided between two fronts and three countries. If the border wars never occured, they would still have commanders and soldiers who could have used against the German-Finnish invasion a significant distance away. Whether or not the Japanese succeed I think is moot. Though, I suppose even if they did have slightly better planes and more prepared troops, the results of the original border war would have probably been the same due to the fact that they didn't have signicant experience against tanks and Zhukov would be leading the defense.
 
Still, Soviet forces would be divided between two fronts and three countries. If the border wars never occured, they would still have commanders and soldiers who could have used against the German-Finnish invasion a significant distance away. Whether or not the Japanese succeed I think is moot. Though, I suppose even if they did have slightly better planes and more prepared troops, the results of the original border war would have probably been the same due to the fact that they didn't have signicant experience against tanks and Zhukov would be leading the defense.
Actually, even IOTL the Soviets always kept enough troops in the east to kick the Kwantung Army back to the Home Islands, if need be.
 
Actually, even IOTL the Soviets always kept enough troops in the east to kick the Kwantung Army back to the Home Islands, if need be.

Yet hadn't they relaxed their presence in the East when the Neutrality Pact was signed? Zhukov would still be stuck in the East and would not be a part of the defense in the European Front. The IJA are also not as worn out as they would be in the OTL when the Soviet's invaded then.
 
The French could not defeat Spain because of the other front´s demands. But in case of a soviet collapse no other front could possibly be a similar drain on german resources.

With the Army having much less need for tanks and guns, the Air Force can and will get a larger share of german resources.

No LL on the one hand and no Eastern Front on the other would be a zero sum game, if LL had been a drain on the Allies just as big as the Eastern Front had been on the Germans.


The point is not just available force, but the capability of applying it. Suppose the Allies land in Norther Norway with five divisions. Sure the Germans might send 50 divisions, as far as available force goes. Now, how are they going to send them? Not by sea, of course – the Allies have already won supremacy on the seas. By rail then. Now there is even today just one rail line going up there, and the Allies can easily keep it permanently under repairs, what with all of its bridges, tunnels and ferries.

It is the same issue with the age-old what-if of more German commitment to Africa. Sure, possible in theory. But nobody has ever found a way to actually bring that force to bear.

This will develop into an air battle. Now, in OTL the Allies built all those huge bombers. If the Germans are spending more on the Luftwaffe, the Allies can spare on bombers and for each bomber build some four or five fighters. Once the Allies have a foothold up there, they won't be able to advance quickly out of it, for sure, and very possibly they won't be able to advance out of it at all; but neither will the Germans be able to dislodge them. An ulcer.
And I do not believe the Soviet Union won't be an ulcer itself. Add occupation duties in an immense hostile territory, a border with whatever remains of the USSR, landings in Crete and then Sicily, and the Germans will be bleeding the classic thousand pinpricks.
Nothing of that will be enough to defeat Germany, of course; but the point is just keeping the war going until the nukes.

As to the Germans spending that much on the Heer and the Eastern Front, yes, that is true – to a point. In mid-1942, when nobody believed any more that the Soviet hut would collapse with the first kick to the door, the Germans were already spending 38.7% of their armament production money on aircraft, and 12,1% on naval assets. Of the remaining 49.2%, no less than 38.6% was for general production of ammo, guns and explosives, most of which would go to the Heer, of course, but a part would again be for the aircraft, vessels, and home defense AA. So it's not as if the Germans were expending 80% or so on the Soviets.
In any case, on this topic I find your logic a bit circular. You claim that the Western Allies can't hope to defeat the huge, now unemployed German army; then you claim that that same army will be underfunded. Tanks age quickly in war. The Germans can certainly decide to spend more on fighters and not produce Panthers, but sooner or later they might well regret that, given that the Allies can keep updating their tank force.

As to no Lend-Lease and no Eastern Front being a zero sum game, it actually is in favor of the Germans, considering that the Soviets did contribute to that front... My point is that when one starts thinking wishfully, he easily sees a given change's results that are favorable to one side, and forgets that there might well be results that are favorable to the other.
 
Wha..? How? When did anything like this occur in OTL that significantly impacted on Germany's abilities? Sure there were uprising in the ghettoes in Poland, but why would the rest of European Russia and the Caucasus present a different situation to what happened in Poland, the Ukraine and the Baltics & Belarus in OTL from 1941 onwards?

Because in OTL the Germans did _not_ carry out the extremes of GPO and did not go for all-out starvation. This led to few all-out uprisings (which when happened did take a toll on German combat units, not just garrison units), but it also led to an overall food deficit for the European Axis sphere. Some suffered more, to the point of death by starvation (the Soviet POWs, the Jews), some quite a lot, to the point of significant death tolls due to malnutrition (the Greeks, the Ukrainans), some less (the Germans), some in between (the French or Belgians), but overall the entire area was _not_ self-sufficient and could only keep going, eventually, by starving the slave workers and forcing the civilians in all occupied countries to make additional holes in their belts.

So taking huge additional territories in – territories that have large population centers such as Moscow or Leningrad, but little local food production – is going to worsen things. The idea of maxing-out the GPO would allow the Germans to "export" beyond the A-A line the food deficit, by deporting masses of Soviets and cutting down the food supply to much of the rest. But that will a) cut down the industrial production in the occupied areas and b), as mentioned, increase the need of deployed troops to face Warsaw Ghetto x1,000.
Alternatively, the Germans can try to feed everyone, so that the workers in that Dobass mine will keep digging out coal for the Reichsbahnen, while at the same time keeping that big army in uniform so that the Western Allies can't land wherever they want – and… at such an attempt… they will fail. Europe was very simply a food-importing region.

As to North Africa, I don't see changes there in 1942 – but in 1941. Nobody, this far, has provided here even a shred of a half-credible proposal for the success of Barbarossa. But some have said that the actual means of achieving that is not important. Fine; so I won't go into that, but I will place as a basic assumption that the Germans in 1941 have to focus on the Soviet Union alone. No Afrika Korps (that gives them to use in the Soviet Union not a lot of additional combat units, just two armored/motorized division, but also the very sizable logistical truck fleet of Afrika Korps). Italian defeat in North Africa in 1941.
If you believe that things do not change in North Africa, because the Axis assets there are as per OTL, then I'll insist on somebody, either you or someone else, detailing how the heck the Germans win in the Soviet Union. There's no such thing as a free lunch.
 
Because in OTL the Germans did _not_ carry out the extremes of GPO and did not go for all-out starvation.


Exactly! And the reason why was because they hadn't yet won the war and so couldn't focus entirely on GPO. In any successful Barbarossa TL which does not have Britain already giving up from 1940, the Germans will still not have won the war and they would know it and hence there would be no reason why what happened in OTL in the occupied areas of the USSR wouldn't still be what generally occurred if Germany occupied most of the European USSR.

This led to few all-out uprisings (which when happened did take a toll on German combat units, not just garrison units), but it also led to an overall food deficit for the European Axis sphere. Some suffered more, to the point of death by starvation (the Soviet POWs, the Jews), some quite a lot, to the point of significant death tolls due to malnutrition (the Greeks, the Ukrainans), some less (the Germans), some in between (the French or Belgians), but overall the entire area was _not_ self-sufficient and could only keep going, eventually, by starving the slave workers and forcing the civilians in all occupied countries to make additional holes in their belts.

So taking huge additional territories in – territories that have large population centers such as Moscow or Leningrad, but little local food production – is going to worsen things. The idea of maxing-out the GPO would allow the Germans to "export" beyond the A-A line the food deficit, by deporting masses of Soviets and cutting down the food supply to much of the rest. But that will a) cut down the industrial production in the occupied areas and b), as mentioned, increase the need of deployed troops to face Warsaw Ghetto x1,000.

But this is looking at the effects quite a few years down the road, not just 1943-1945. Sure they won't be self-sufficient 1943, but they weren't in OTL anyway and still somehow managed to keep up fighting until 1945. The same would apply in this TL only here large numbers of Russians would undergo similar malnutrition to that of the Greeks and Ukrainians (and malnourished people won't be able to put up as effective a resistance....).

Besides, given the siege of Leningrad and the refugees and the fighting why are Leningrad and Moscow still going to be the huge population centres that they were in the pre-war situation? And how does any of that differ from places already under German control like Riga, Kiev, Odessa, Kharkov/Kharkiv, Smolensk, Minsk, etc anyway?

Alternatively, the Germans can try to feed everyone, so that the workers in that Dobass mine will keep digging out coal for the Reichsbahnen, while at the same time keeping that big army in uniform so that the Western Allies can't land wherever they want – and… at such an attempt… they will fail. Europe was very simply a food-importing region.

Which changes nothing from OTL anyway, even though in OTL the Germans and their allies kept on fighting even when put in a worse position by losing control of what food producing regions they previously held in the USSR. Why would something have to change from the modus operandi of the situation as existed from 1941-1943 anyway as opposed to just applying it to a greater area?


As to North Africa, I don't see changes there in 1942 – but in 1941. Nobody, this far, has provided here even a shred of a half-credible proposal for the success of Barbarossa. But some have said that the actual means of achieving that is not important. Fine; so I won't go into that, but I will place as a basic assumption that the Germans in 1941 have to focus on the Soviet Union alone. No Afrika Korps (that gives them to use in the Soviet Union not a lot of additional combat units, just two armored/motorized division, but also the very sizable logistical truck fleet of Afrika Korps). Italian defeat in North Africa in 1941.
If you believe that things do not change in North Africa, because the Axis assets there are as per OTL, then I'll insist on somebody, either you or someone else, detailing how the heck the Germans win in the Soviet Union. There's no such thing as a free lunch.

Hitler wasn't about to let Mussolini hang, so having no German units in North Africa doesn't seem possible. Unless the POD is changed from the 1930s. Hitler didn't want to bother with Yugoslavia until after Barbarossa, but again thanks to Mussolini his hand was basically forced. Besides, it would be kind of impossible for the Axis to deny the Allies access to the Mediterranean (and thus the possibility of landing in southern Europe either in Italy or coming back to cause trouble in the Balkans) if the Axis just let the Allies have North Africa and continue to have unimpeded access through the Suez Canal to the important islands of Cyprus and more importantly Malta. It also threatens to alienate a key ally of Germany. Have Hitler basically sell out Mussolini and the possibility exists for Mussolini (or rather Italy) to do the same. Italy switched pretty quickly once the Allies landed on the peninsula and Italy's entire reason for allying with Germany was because it wanted to dominate the mediterranean and north africa. Take that away and you take away the very basis for Italy's active alliance. Even if Italy didn't switch, just by no longer being an active ally it opens up a world of trouble for Germany since the Allies will have an easier time returning to the Continent if they know Italy doesn't give a damn anymore. And since the Afrikakorps was sent to North Africa at the same time that the Allies were still in Greece, how do you propose getting Hitler to send help to the Italians in the Balkans but not in North Africa even though both theatres were linked through Egypt and necessary to secure the Axis' southern flank? Neither are like Italian East Africa where the Germans have no realistic way of sending help even if they wanted to. North Africa may have been peripheral, but it was important. Italian East Africa wasn't even peripheral, it was marginal and defeat there could be reversed by success elsewhere that forced peace in their favour anyway (or by victory in North Africa paving the way for the Italians to go back via Egypt). If Hitler doesn't help Mussolini, then the Italians face defeat in Greece and Albania presenting the Allies with an opportunity to woo Yugoslavia (which wouldn't have been invaded if Hitler let Mussolini fend for himself) and Bulgaria (which would still have been officially neutral having not been pressured to signed the Tripartite Pact in preparation for the invasion of Greece). The Allies could then try to woo Yugoslavia and Bulgaria to join them or remain neutral. The mere possibility of the former would expose Germany herself to direct invasion (through Yugoslavia) and would threaten the rear area (Hungary and Romania) needed to support Barbarossa. And should the Allies take all of North Africa in 1941, then whether or not they were also successful in Greece it would present the opportunity for an Allied invasion of Sicily (plans for which already existed in 1941 as Operation Influx). So the Allies take North Africa and then with unimpeded access (apart from U-boats) to the Med from both east (Suez) and west (Straits of Gibraltar) they can land in Sicily in 1941 using Gibraltar, Malta, Cyprus, Egypt and the rest of North Africa to support such an invasion. The Italians are likely to do no better than in any of their other encounters with the British and Americans then Rommel probably doesn't even get to go the USSR with the "Afrikakorps" (or whatever it would be called in preparation for invading the USSR in May or June 1941) and instead gets sent to Italy with the Afrikakorps becoming the Italienkorps which would then be tasked with preventing the Allies from moving up the Italian peninsula and then threatening Germany (through the former Austria) or southern France (which would also have the potential to perhaps cause the Vichy regime to try and switch as well if all of France hasn't been occupied yet).
 
Exactly! And the reason why was because they hadn't yet won the war and so couldn't focus entirely on GPO. In any successful Barbarossa TL which does not have Britain already giving up from 1940, the Germans will still not have won the war and they would know it and hence there would be no reason why what happened in OTL in the occupied areas of the USSR wouldn't still be what generally occurred if Germany occupied most of the European USSR.

You are missing the key point.

With what the Germans had occupied in OTL, they had taken most of the food-producing areas of the USSR. _And_ with all of that they ran a food deficit.

Add everything to the A-A line, and you add a few millions more population _and_ no significant additional food-producing land. The people in Moscow and Leningrad lived by importing food from the South-East.

There is a reason if GPO and other plans draw a survive/die line between the black soil areas and the forest/steppe areas.

So no, once everything is taken to the A-A line, the already bad food deficit will become unsustainable without further - major - adjustment. There is no chance of things being more or less as per OTL.
 
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