DBWI : Soviets Conquer Berlin First Instead of Patton

Dolan

Banned
Now, before all of you screamed ASB, let's get this in line.

The Eastern Front is home to the most brutal fighting in late WW2, and Germany decided to concentrate keeping Soviets at bay, prefering to surrender to the West rather facing certain destruction at Soviet revenge. Of course, the Soviets knowing this and try their best, causing Western Allies to formulate a daring operation focused to do an armored thrust directly into Berlin and forcing German Surrender as fast as possible in April 1945, and General Patton himself headed the daring thrust on his tank.

Maybe something could differ so that the Soviet would overrun Berlin first?
What would happen as we would not have the now iconic photo of Patton caught and slapped Hitler?
 
Well, for one, the Soviet Union's leadership would have had to agreed amongst themselves that the preventable deaths of Soviet citizens was preferable to the preventable deaths of British and American citizens. As we know historically the "blood riots" were a significant phenomena in Commonwealth and US forces tasked with occupation. Additionally, the Soviets achieved their pre-agreed stop lines with losses that were both clearly acceptable and had an economic impact that was sustainable, lessening the ravishing of the soon to be satellite states. Maybe Stalin could have been more paranoid of his desperately loyal staff, and forced them into useless and bloody competitions over bragging rights that potential socialist and communist workers would not have given a fig for.

Who knows what Konev may have done had Stalin ordered him on Berlin, and then had he not died in a GAZ accident.

yours,
Sam R.
 
That photo was staged, but so was “Raising the Stars and Stripes over the Reichstag,” for that matter. Both events actually occurred a few hours earlier.

Now, the US takes all the credit for capturing Hitler alive. The truth is that, after Martin Bormann’s suicide, Goebbels searched Hitler’s room, confiscated all the weapons, and simply locked the door. If he had been faced with the NKVD instead of Patton’s MPs, it’s likely that Hitler would have killed himself whatever the cost. Remember Hitler refused to admit defeat even on the scaffold at Nuremberg.

I think the biggest difference would be regarding Weidling’s declaration that Berlin was an open city. That’s impossible to imagine under the Soviets. The Nazis would have fought a house-to-house war of annihilation in Berlin.

It’s always tempting to think a minor PoD would lead to Red Berlin. But what if the Soviets faced victory at Seelow Heights? “The Miracle on the Oder” saw infantry riding to the front in Berlin taxis and buses alongside over 85% of the Reich’s remaining armoured vehicles. It’s the main reason the Soviet offensive ground to a halt, giving Patton’s forces about a one-week advantage. The counterattack along Reichsautobahn 2 (the attacks by Steiner and Wenck) probably bought a few days as well.
 
Rommel surrendering the Western Front to the Wallies did leave the door to Berlin wide open.
If Rommel had been involved in the plot to kill Hitler , he probably would have been executed. If man who was supposed to talk to Rommel about the coup noy been killed when a P-47 straifed his car he might have been.
 
That photo was staged, but so was “Raising the Stars and Stripes over the Reichstag,” for that matter. Both events actually occurred a few hours earlier.…

It’s always tempting to think a minor PoD would lead to Red Berlin.

East Berlin felt four powers occupation for a lot longer than say Vienna or Tokio did. You of course mean an East Berlin captured by Soviet forces.

yours,
Sam R.
 
Does that much really change in the long term? German, Berlin and Europe as a whole still get partitioned as per the deal in Azov, the Anglo-American armed forces lose a few less men on occupation duty, and Hitler probably kills himself rather than face execution after his trial. Neo-Nazism is probably a bit quieter without the whole "Nuremburg Martyr" rubbish that seems to dominate the darkest depths of the internet, and perhaps there is a greater respect for the Red Army's role in WW2. I don't see how the Soviets getting to Berlin first would change much regarding the end of the Pacific War either, since we're talking about a POD only in the last weeks of the war. So Downfall still happens and Kyoto gets vaporised, before Japan gets partitioned too.
Overall, the change is pretty small in my eye, since the face of the post-war world had basically already been decided once Spring 1945 came.
 
I think the OP is too influenced by the movie "Patton" which, remember, is not strictly historical.

Most historians agree that the Red Army could have taken Berlin by themselves in 1945. Since the Western Allies were going to wind up being assigned occupation of two thirds of the city anyway, Stalin agreed beforehand to just let the Americans have the prestige of taking it. Some historians have argued that the concessions he got in the Far East and in the occupation of Japan were more than worth it for him.

Anyway my point is the POD isn't as simple as Patton succeeding or not succeeding. You probably have to change the course of the war somehow, maybe have the Soviet Union handle the Japanese better and they don't need American assistance as much, or something where they decide that the Red Army can and take Berlin and they don't need other power involvement. And whatever that POD is that will have butterflies. World War 2 was very complicated.

More importantly, the postwar settlement changes. Maybe you don't get Berlin, Tokyo, and Vienna divided up between the Allied powers, for example.
 
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