Is there any way Germany might have conquered more territory to its east and consolidated power there only to be later conquered from the west? Could something like this cause the collapse of both Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union?
Is there any way Germany might have conquered more territory to its east and consolidated power there only to be later conquered from the west? Could something like this cause the collapse of both Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union?
Isn't that the premise of Calbear's "Anglo-American/Nazi War" timeline?Is there any way Germany might have conquered more territory to its east and consolidated power there only to be later conquered from the west? Could something like this cause the collapse of both Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union?
Maybe the last chance would be in the summer of 1943 with a big German victory at Kursk or Manstein pulling off a bigger version of the backhand blow of 3rd Kharkov, the plan he wanted instead of Citadel. Either way anything to persaude Stalin to sue for peace would have required a very big German victory indeed. Probably a difficult outcome for the Germans to achieve. A recent book by George Nipe, "Blood, Steel and Myth" details the problems of weather and Soviet reserves. Zamulin's "Demolishing the Myth2 places more emphasis on the impact of the unanticipated numberof available Soviet reserves moving to face the sothern prong of Citadel.
Without a really large Soviet battlefield defeat in the summer of 1943 Stalin just isn't going to accept a Brest Litovsk style peace. A German capture of Moscow in 1941 or 1942 (Germans go for Moscow instead of the Cuacasus in 1942) or the fall of the Cuacasus, Stalingrad and maybe Lenigrad in 1942 might be sufficient to result in a coup against Stalin and a Brest Litovsk style peace made by his successors
Without a really large Soviet battlefield defeat in the summer of 1943 Stalin just isn't going to accept a Brest Litovsk style peace. A German capture of Moscow in 1941 or 1942 (Germans go for Moscow instead of the Cuacasus in 1942) or the fall of the Cuacasus, Stalingrad and maybe Lenigrad in 1942 might be sufficient to result in a coup against Stalin and a Brest Litovsk style peace made by his successors
In my opinion, what you need is a big Soviet victory (like IOTL at Moscow, only bigger) showing Hitler the war can't be ended the way he wants it to (with German forces in the Urals), then a successful German counterattack which doesn't destroy the Soviet Union but nevertheless inflicts a lot of damage so Stalin thinks he can't win either (or not without a gargantuan effort) and then, there's a narrow margin in which it could be pulled off.
The only real opportunity we have is Spring-Summer of 1943 and that requires a rash of near-impossible events, one of which would have to include Stalin getting a unusual fit of pessimism and Hitler biting it. Otherwise, no way. Hitler is ideologically committed to perpetual war with the "sub-human communist jews of the east" and post mid-1943 Stalin will know beyond all doubt that the war is in his favor which gives him no reason to sue for such a peace.