Maybe the Chinese Premier isn't assassinated by the Maquis in 1973 and we avoid the unfortunate "Garden Flowerpot" incident with Chinese State Security. Then again the Republic of Germany (i.e. Bavaria, Baden, Wurtemberg, Saxony, and Thurungia) might not include Luxembourg, Alsace-Lorraine, Austria, or Czechia had France remained free. Thorez tried to maintain control of Vietnam and created Free Republic of Indochina in the process but Duclos created another in his own backyard with his obsession that German culture was permeating France and Rochet's quiet belief in Roman Catholicism with his assassination in Nancy with ironic retaliation against the whole of the populace. Hard to see why Luxembourg, Alsace, Lorraine, and Franche-Comte broke off after the Winter of Paris and joined Germany after threatened with invasion barely two weeks later.