DBWI: What if Hitler and Stalin fought each other?

Wouldn't it be interesting to see a war between the Reich and Stalinist Russia? In my opinion, the two, even if ideologically diametrically opposed were in the same league of evil. They both killed millions and terrorized their populations. So, based on the wars they had and the war crimes they committed in OTL, what would a war between the two look like?
 
I would feel sorry for the poor suckers in the way. It was bad enough putting up with one of these monsters not talking two.:eek:
 
Well, Hitler's decision to leave the USSR alone was based on a number of factors that could easily have gone a different way. Most historians agree it was the work of people such as Haushofer, working their way into the Nazi inner circle, who helped change the focus of the Nazi regime from Lebensraum in the East to domination in the West, as well as control of Africa. The key was probably to get Hitler's mania focused on the French, as traitors of Germanic civlization, and convincing him that the Russians, being an inferior race, would eventually destroy their own civiliazation if left to their own devices (which is exactly what happened several decades later, although it had much more to do with Communism than racial theory. In any event, it was significant.

The new plan's culmination in the annexation of the Low Countries, Denmark, and the northern half of France changed the map of Europe as drastically as Hitler's original plans would have. The plight of the Africans in the "German Colonial Zone" was at least as horrifying as what would have happened to the Ukraines, Byleorussians, and Russians if Hitler had invaded the USSR.

But as for what would have happened then? Judging by the Soviet Army's performance in Finland at the time when this could have taken place-ie, before atom bombs and MAD entered the picture-the Wehrmacht would have crushed Stalin's Empire with ease. The main difference in the ATL to OTL would be that Hitler would probably then concentrate on his one gigantic landmass as his base of power, rather than several large plots of land on three continents, connected by a formidable Kriegsmarine. The control of Russia would also have prevented the long Civil War in China, as Mao Zedong would have lost much earlier, and Chiang Kai-shek would have taken control long before 1956.

The conclusion would have been very different in a two-sided Cold War, as opposed to our three-sided one. In retrospect, of course, it might not have been the Nazi's best move anyway-in the end, Hitler got his Eastern living space, when the Soviet Union fell apart and the weakened, unstable Russian Union couldn't stop the Wehrmacht from taking Byelorussia, Ukraine, and the Baltics. The very fact that the current Fuhrer has set up another round of vicious pogroms against his new slavic subjects (all the while denying it) just goes to show that the essential nature of the regime never changed-and the dream of Lebensraum, while restrained by alternate theories and common sense argument back in the Thirties, never faded away.
 
Interesting exploration Foreign Shadow, I always thought that if Hitler fought both the West and Russia during WW2, he would have lost but I looked up the Winter War and turns out Stalin's Russia, for all its size and population was a big fluke militarily.
 
Thank you. I agree, a two-front war would have been risky for Germany-that's probably part of why Hitler was convinced to redirect his goals for German hegemony. But considering what a mess Russia was, Germany probably could have knocked it out of the war long before the fact that Britain was still defiant could have played a factor. The only spoiler might be the United States-if Britain was still alive and kicking in late 1941, they could have played a major role with Britain as their base-but only if Russia was still a going concern too, which is extremely unlikely. Hitler, while far from the genius he claims to be, wouldn't have repeated Napoleon's mistake of letting the Russian winter do the Russians' fighting for them. In the end, Hitler's decision to turn away from the East is probably the only thing that kept the Soviet Union going until the mid-1980's collapse.
 
Maybe with no Ribentropp-Molotov agreement

What if there was no Ribentropp-Molotov Pact? Then Hitler would not move into Poland since it’s independence was being guaranteed by France and the UK. Let’s imagine that nevertheless Stalin still goes after the Baltic states and Finland. Hitler than takes the opportunity to, in the name of protection of its smaller neighbours against the “mad man” from the East to attack the SU.
 
Thank you. I agree, a two-front war would have been risky for Germany-that's probably part of why Hitler was convinced to redirect his goals for German hegemony. But considering what a mess Russia was, Germany probably could have knocked it out of the war long before the fact that Britain was still defiant could have played a factor. The only spoiler might be the United States-if Britain was still alive and kicking in late 1941, they could have played a major role with Britain as their base-but only if Russia was still a going concern too, which is extremely unlikely. Hitler, while far from the genius he claims to be, wouldn't have repeated Napoleon's mistake of letting the Russian winter do the Russians' fighting for them. In the end, Hitler's decision to turn away from the East is probably the only thing that kept the Soviet Union going until the mid-1980's collapse.

You're seriously underestimating the Soviet military potential. Finland wasn't representative; that was in the middle of huge army reforms, and Stalin, being racially paranoid as ever, primarily sent divisions from the southern parts of his Empire for fear that the northern peoples would sympathise with the Finns. Take someone who's hardly seen snow before and let him fight in -40 C and that's what you'll get. Stalin made Napoleon's mistake in this case; In Finland, the Russian winter did the Finns' fighting for them.

If you look at the scope of the combined operations the Soviets ran in the mid-'30s, as well as the new tanks they were projecting by '40-41, you'll see their military was far from as backwards as we think today. Yes, it degraded over time, but was at peak strength around '43-44, with equipment that could match the Germans' and vastly superior numbers. If Stalin had chosen to attack, he could've unravelled the German Empire within a year or two; they were stretched that thin, especially with all the capital and research going into the carrier programme and that rocketry BS.

But of course, a paranoid like Stalin didn't have the guts to take advantage of such an opportunity, and it slipped him by when the atomics programme succeeded in '49. Probably all the better for us, given how the Finns and Romanians were to suffer when the Soviets took revenge on them for the failed initial campaigns in the '50s...
 
Accepting for the sake of argument that this situation would have led ultimately led to German domination of most of Eurasia,this ATL would also have had significant impacts in Asia beyond an earlier defeat of The Communists in the Chinese Civil War. In fact, it is hard to speculate on the long term ramifications.

If Germany and the USSR went to war in 1940-41, it is reasonable to speculate that Japan (then still a German ally) would have soon entered the war themselves soon thereafter. Japan might even have sought an accomodation with the Nationalist Chinese regime in Nanking, which itself was being courted by Hitler. With Nationalist help, the Japanese could have slashed through Mongolia and Siberia to threaten the Soviet Pacific coast. Also, as opposed to our TL, Japan would have had more reason to remain a part of the Rome-Berlin Axis, as they could count on German assistance in the event of a war with Britian and the USA (which was a very real possibility at the time). Also, the Chinese-Japanese alliance would have removed the main issue forcing US-Japanese relations to a head.

I suspect that the conclusion of this Nazi-War would leave Japan in full control of the entire Pacific coast of Asia from the Chinese-Manchoukou border to the Bering Strait. China would have expanded to acheive hegemony over outer Mongolia and to the south, including former French indochina and Dutch indonesia. Only US pressure (stemming from the latent hostility between these two Pacific powers) would have protected the Associated Republics of India from absorption into the Japanese Empire.

Britain is an odd case. It is hard to believe the British government would not have evetually accepted a negotiated settlement based on Hitler's Six Points regardless of events between the Nazis and USSR. Thus Britain would have survived as an independent state, but possibly lost more of its empire and had some limitations placed on military use of the British Isles. Whether or not the British Commonwealth would have been reformed with its capital and Royal residence in Ottawa is uncertain.
 
Well the issue of the humanitarian disasters created by the collapse of the command economies, created by the Soviet Union's military failures in India starting in 1989, the sudden German withdrawal from Manchukuo in 1977 or Al-Asqa destruction of the Reichstag in 1998, has served to create a world that we currently live in. An earlier collapse of at least one of these political powers would have led to an earlier economic reconstruction and environmental cleanup. Certainly the transition of these economies to free-trade economies would have been easier, similar to the North American Free Trade Agreement in 1955, and the North American Union (NAU) in 1994.

In terms of Asia,the nationalistic tendencies of the nations of the region may have been tempered. A Soviet victory would have certainly prevented the 1946 Malaysia Revolution and the 1950 Huk Revolution of the Philippines. A Nazi victory would have certainly aborted the 1956 Indonesia Revolution along with the 1954 Indochina Revolution. Either way, the ethnic cleansing and violence of the region wouldn't have been a problem for American forces in the region.
 
To be frank, this means that the Second World War goes a far nicer route. It would not be a fifteen year slaughter as the USA dropped nuclear ordinance on Germany and the Soviet Union. Ours is a grim world, but perhaps the Blacks or the Reds would side with the Allies, and that coalition wins the war, to work things out afterward. It would have been much better that way.

Figure that the linchpin of Allied Strategy would call for nuclear attacks against enemy cities and the elimination of their will to fight. The USA and the UK ultimately used some 1,400 nuclear weapons in that war, reducing Germany and Italy to smoking craters and leveling Western Russia.

If the Allies could choose which side to fight, the war might end by 1948--by that time only a handful of nuclear weapons would be deployed in the fighting, something like 10 weapons total. Also, the UK would be in much better shape instead of suffering a dozen nuclear attacks as OTL. With only 10 nuclear weapons used of perhaps 20 Kilotons of firepower, the environmental damage and resultant mass starvation caused by burning German, Italian, Japanese, Soviet and British Cities would be butterflied away.

The Whole last half of the 20th century gets butterflied away! There would be no massive flight of Ten Million British Refugees seeking a new home in the United States. Italy would probably not be a Mafia puppet show, and reborn nations like Poland, Flanders and Korea would never be able to claim the territory that they do--Poland Claims everything up to the Rhine River! Korea Claims Kyushu and Shikoku. These kinds of claims would not happen, and Europe would look more sane in general--It would probably resemble the world of 1919 much more than it does today, which has big white blanks and dotted lines all over it.

Perhaps the best thing of all is that the USA and the UK could have some pride in their war efforts. The Second World War was a terrible thing--made all the worse through the deployment of close to 1 Gigaton of explosives, much of it directed against enemy civilian centers. While the Axis Powers did this first--bombing Shanghai and Warsaw, it doesn't mean that it was right to do this to them, no matter how essential it was to win the war. It means that the USA and the UK would not send air crews over Europe with the objective and the knowledge that they were going to kill as many as one million civilians in a single attack (The H-Bombs of the Late 50s did indeed have this kind of death toll).

The Second World War was a hideous tragedy--to say nothing of the fact that the even when the shooting stopped in 1960 with the Axis surrender, there would be another decade of starvation, economic depression and widespread human suffering. This ATL would be like the chicken pox--better to get it over early when its not much to worry about, then later when it would nearly kill you.
 
The Second World War was a hideous tragedy--to say nothing of the fact that the even when the shooting stopped in 1960 with the Axis surrender, there would be another decade of starvation, economic depression and widespread human suffering. This ATL would be like the chicken pox--better to get it over early when its not much to worry about, then later when it would nearly kill you.
The analogy to chicken pox is a little strange but appropriate. One item to consider is the many questionable leaders the United States government has backed in the aftermath of the collapse of both the Soviet Union and the Third Reich regimes in Europe. For instance, would the United States have allowed the installation of Empress Maria Vladimirovna Romanov of Russia in St. Petersburg (c. December 1969) if the Cossack insurgency hadn't launched its "Winter Offensive"? Would the Allied governments even allow Kaiser Louis Ferdinand Oskar to come to power in Prussia (c. September 1967)? Also would we allow the 1991 coups that installed the corrupt oligarch regimes under Anatoly Chubais and Boris Berezovsky? Would we have been able to prevent the 1994 rise of General Vladimir Zhirinovsky and his "loose nukes" that destroyed Chicago, IL on August 23,1998?
 
Just read the title of this thread again and a completely different idea came to mind.

Who really knows what would have happened if Austrian art and music critic Adolf Hitler took up the puglisitic art instead of wrestling? As we all know, former Georgian seminarian and communist agitator Ironman Joe became one of the most celebrated middleweight boxers in the world after his 3-round demolition of Max Schmelling in 1935. Stalin remained the dominant fighter in the world another 18 years until his suspicious death in Moscow. Several times in his own career, Hitler compared criticism to boxing, and his many aggressively hostile Opera reviews made great use of metaphoric references to boxing. Although fairly small and frail, Hitler showed himself to be a surprisingly effective amateur wrestler, often entertaining Vienna opera fans by tackling and subduing overage soprano divas and insufferable tenors backstage after their performances. One can imagine Amazing Adolf "dancing like a butterfly and stinging like a bee" all around the powerful thrusts and roundhouse swings of his Slavic enemy, waiting for just the right moment when he could deliver a volley of quick blows to his head. What a fight that would be!
 
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To be frank, this means that the Second World War goes a far nicer route. It would not be a fifteen year slaughter as the USA dropped nuclear ordinance on Germany and the Soviet Union. Ours is a grim world, but perhaps the Blacks or the Reds would side with the Allies, and that coalition wins the war, to work things out afterward. It would have been much better that way.

Figure that the linchpin of Allied Strategy would call for nuclear attacks against enemy cities and the elimination of their will to fight. The USA and the UK ultimately used some 1,400 nuclear weapons in that war, reducing Germany and Italy to smoking craters and leveling Western Russia.

If the Allies could choose which side to fight, the war might end by 1948--by that time only a handful of nuclear weapons would be deployed in the fighting, something like 10 weapons total. Also, the UK would be in much better shape instead of suffering a dozen nuclear attacks as OTL. With only 10 nuclear weapons used of perhaps 20 Kilotons of firepower, the environmental damage and resultant mass starvation caused by burning German, Italian, Japanese, Soviet and British Cities would be butterflied away.

The Whole last half of the 20th century gets butterflied away! There would be no massive flight of Ten Million British Refugees seeking a new home in the United States. Italy would probably not be a Mafia puppet show, and reborn nations like Poland, Flanders and Korea would never be able to claim the territory that they do--Poland Claims everything up to the Rhine River! Korea Claims Kyushu and Shikoku. These kinds of claims would not happen, and Europe would look more sane in general--It would probably resemble the world of 1919 much more than it does today, which has big white blanks and dotted lines all over it.

Perhaps the best thing of all is that the USA and the UK could have some pride in their war efforts. The Second World War was a terrible thing--made all the worse through the deployment of close to 1 Gigaton of explosives, much of it directed against enemy civilian centers. While the Axis Powers did this first--bombing Shanghai and Warsaw, it doesn't mean that it was right to do this to them, no matter how essential it was to win the war. It means that the USA and the UK would not send air crews over Europe with the objective and the knowledge that they were going to kill as many as one million civilians in a single attack (The H-Bombs of the Late 50s did indeed have this kind of death toll).

The Second World War was a hideous tragedy--to say nothing of the fact that the even when the shooting stopped in 1960 with the Axis surrender, there would be another decade of starvation, economic depression and widespread human suffering. This ATL would be like the chicken pox--better to get it over early when its not much to worry about, then later when it would nearly kill you.
(ooc: Yeah, can you read the comments people made before you, before you post? Foreign Shadow has already made a comment that the Germany and USSR, in this timeline, survived to engage in a arms race against the West. Also someone mentioned that the USSR fell in the 80s and Germany took over the former lands of the Soviets. So please don't change the timeline drastically, so we can keep things simple and straigt?)

IC: Well if Germany fought the Soviets, I would see them attacking on 3 possible routes. One would be to capture St. Petersburg and the Baltic, other one would be to capture Moscow, and the third option would be to capture the Caucasian Oil fields. Not all three at once, of course. That would simply overstretch supply lines and be completely idiotic. Even a three year old can see that. Capuring Moscow seems the best route since it'll knock out the Russian leadership and make the already unstable system to its knees.
 
I can't believe some people think Russia could have fought off Germany. Just look at WWI. Less then half the German military gave Russia enough of a beating to fall to Revolution. If the Germans invaded in June of 41(Best time IMO), it would have been over by January. With the Germans mobility, they could have captured Moscow, Leningrad, and threatened Soviet Control over the Caucasus(Before the War, there was oil there).


Germany still would have lost the War to America, Britain and Japan though.
 

Vault-Scope

Banned
Well, London and New York would still have been major cities, metal is still being scavenged from these fields of rubbles.

The Karlslich-Zimmerman virus would never have been developed and used against the USA (and whatever was left of britain) back in 72´, population in the USA today would be 300-400 millions scale(excluding the annexation of Canada) instead of the 163 millions today.
 
Here is something that might make some insteresting ATLs, what do you think would happen to the surviving Jewish populace in the ATL. I know that the initial plan was to create a "State of Israel" based in Jerusalem, but considering the failure of Zionist rebels to seize the city underr Meier Kahane in 1974, one has to wonder how long could that state could survive. But assuming that either the Soviets or Nazis collapse in Europe, freeing a number of Jews to emigrate to Palestine, could a "State of Israel" exist? Also considering that Egyptians and Syrians seized control of the West Bank of Palestinian territories of the country in wars in 1967 and 1973, how long would it last? Unless the country had some serious military force protecting it (very ASB-ish), the country would have certainly returned into Palestinian rule at least by 1981...
 
IC: Well if Germany fought the Soviets, I would see them attacking on 3 possible routes. One would be to capture St. Petersburg and the Baltic, other one would be to capture Moscow, and the third option would be to capture the Caucasian Oil fields. Not all three at once, of course. That would simply overstretch supply lines and be completely idiotic. Even a three year old can see that. Capuring Moscow seems the best route since it'll knock out the Russian leadership and make the already unstable system to its knees.

[OOC] The three at once attack would be what Hitler did, isn't it? :D
 
Plausible map

Trying to figure out map from thread
How this look?

l_1720bd3258d47aff1c8c4c75cc29d2a1.jpg
 
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