DBWI: What if Hitler doesn't quit after Stalingrad?

This is kind of interesting - most conventional history tends to emphasize the fact that making peace right then was the right call.

However, at the time there was a violent disagreement about the whole thing, and Hitler *really* wanted to keep fighting, and felt that peace would somehow "damage the prestige" of his proud Aryan race but he also knew he was in a two-front war and couldn't hold off the Allies and the Soviets.
 

yourworstnightmare

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The German defeat would happen earlier I think. It didn't take that long for Stalin to stab Hitler in the back and break the truce OTL. Although TTL, the Germans would retreating fighting, so there would probably not be such grand battles as the Breaking of East Prussia and the Battle of Krakow.
 
The whole 'Bitter Truce' period is one of the weirder things to happen in WW2 and is the primary cause that, imo, broke both sides. Both sides had bashed each others brains in nearly completely for little gain for either.* The Germans were able to pull off a monumental bluff that they could push forth and had the Devil's own luck when it came to continuing the ruse.

The only thing that kept Hitler from overriding his generals was the infamous Dream he had on September 2, 1942. After that he went a whole lot more hands off with the Wehrmacht and rescinded many of his absolutely moronic "no retreat" standing orders.

And it did hurt German prestige as Hitler feared, but it hurt the Soviets far worse, not the least because FDR hit the roof and bounced three times and the huge loss of popular support in Moscow for the Man of Steel and his cohorts. I seriously doubt Khrushchev and Zhukov could have pulled off the Reverse Purge as they did in 1946.

OOC: *I'm going with a theory that Stalin micromanaged the front a lot more than OTL and the Germans did a lot better job in wrecking the Red Army since as it was there was no way Stalin would call a peace after a victory like OTL Stalingrad. So basically the Axis took about the same amount of casualties as OTL but the Russians much worse for much less territory recovered.
 
FDR literally cut off Lend Lease within minutes of the truce, and it showed in Soviet logistics and transportation. Actually, I wonder how Deep Operations would have developed with the logistical capability that they lost due to the end of LL? IIRC they were due to get a lot of Studebaker trucks, to name one thing, and they had to shift production AWAY from military production back to agriculture, because the army was starving to death.

They had to use everything they had just to get TO the Vistula, and they simply couldn't go anymore. Of course the Germans were exhausted at the time too, and the Western Allies were pushing into Berlin at that point...
 
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