"Brest-Litovsk" in WWII?

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?
 
there are some theories about Stalin asking for separate peace with Nazis in October 1941. So let's say it is true an both parties are getting ready for round two.
 
Unlikely without regime change...

The Treaty of Brest-Litovsk in early 1918 was accomplished by largely victorious imperial Germans negotiating with a weak new Bolshevik regime. In June of 1941, Hitler's Germany violated the existing Non-Aggression Pact of 1939 by invading Stalin's USSR. It is extremely unlikely that Hitler would have been willing to negotiate an armistice with Stalin as long as Germany had any hope of winning the war in the East--which is to say, before the German defeat at Stalingrad in early 1943 and the opening of a second front in Europe with the Western Allies' invasion of mainland Italy in the late summer of 1943. Once the tide of war had clearly shifted to the Russians' favor in 1943, it is very unlikely that Stalin would have been willing to agree to an armistice with Hitler's Germany. In short, regime change on one side or the other (more likely the assassination of Hitler in 1943 or earlier) was probably a necessary condition for an armistice in the East.

Hitler was much more willing and likely to negotiate a reasonable armistice with Great Britain to conclude the war in the West in 1940-41. An armistice ending the war in the West, and thus keeping the USA out of the European war altogether, would have allowed Hitler's Germany to fight the USSR in the East without worry of a second front or of the disruptive effects on the German war effort of bombing by the USAF and RAF. An exhausting stalemate in the East and possible armistice was more likely under those circumstances.
 

GarethC

Donor
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?

Yes, sort of.

I mean, in a long war, Germany loses, and there's no real question about it. However, the morale is to the physical as three to one, as a chap who knew a thing or two about war once said, and the key is that early German success was very close to bringing about Stalin's downfall from internal politics - and then who knows?

If you want actual concrete different results, it's a bit difficult - you maybe could have Japan to decide to reinforce failure at Khalkin Gol, which prevents Stalin from bringing the Siberian divisions to reinforce Moscow.

Now, wiser heads than me have said that Moscow wasn't going to fall anyway - but the point is more that fear and internal friction might result in some apparatchik possessed of ambition and intrepidity deciding to reign in hell and bump Stalin off, and then to seek a Brest-Litovsk and trade a great deal of space for a very little time, as Lenin put it.

Who would Stalin's replacement be? You'll have to make that one up. Just note that deciding that Uncle Joe was leading the country on a path to ruin and having the intestinal fortitude to do something about it, is not necessarily linked to either being able to get a better outcome for the USSR, nor to being able to hold on to power within it for any length of time whatsoever.
 
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?

No. The Germans will never negotiate a peace with the USSR, and if they don't try *something* political the Soviets bury them in a rain of steel.
 
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?
 
Probably not.

An apparently successful Hitler in 1941-42 would probably not seek any peace with the USSR short of the collapse of Communism and Russian cession of virtually all of European Russia and the Caucasus to German control. Stalin, to preserve his own power, might consider accepting draconian terms but Hitler would be unlikely to offer any.

After 1942, the situation is reversed. Stalin would be receiving western aid feel more secure in his alliance with the west and the fact that ultimately the Allies would defeat Germany. No way the USSR would negotiate a peace short of German total defeat. By late 1943, the outcome was obvious.
 
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
 
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

Actually it requires a Germany whose concept of peace is not turning the USSR into the charnel house of what had been Russian civilization.
 
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

The problem with this is that Nazi Germany would not accept any such offers. What it would take is not coup in Russia, but a coup in Germany to remove doctrinaire Nazis and their insane war aims. There certainly might have been some sentiment for this in the Army, but it's pretty unlikely when Germany seems so triumphant. This might be a POD worth exploring.
 
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.
 
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.

Except that if we don't change the Nazis being in charge they'll fight until Germany is a pile of burning rubble and their armies are altogether destroyed.
 
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.
 
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.

If, in early February 1943 during his ranting and raving at news of the 6th Army's surrender at Stalingrad, Hitler works himself into a stroke or heart failure and falls down dead, who would be likely to succeed him? Because a semi-sane Nazi successor regime, or a military junta, might be able to negotiate a cold peace with the USSR with Germany retaining at least some of it's gains, particularly if the Kharkhov victories in the spring aren't butterflied away.
 
The Nazi's were simply too dead-set on an unconditional surrender for such a thing to occur. They wanted all Soviet territory west of the Urals, as opposed to just Ukraine or Belarus like the Kaiserreich. If the Nazi party had been less dead-set on that goal (or if a plain fascist or ultra-nationalist party had been in power instead of the Nutzies),then they'd probably be willing to go for a Brest-Litovsk style peace. Otherwise, it's ASB unless Hitler and the Nazi's gain some brain cells. :p
 
Top