DDR over all of Germany

Though it’s possible that NATO HQ might be moved to the United Kingdom, it’s totally unrealistic that they would have it in Ireland(since the Irish Republic was never part of NATO, and would never even join NATO in that timeline). As per having NATO based out of Northern Ireland, I could just imagine the complications that would occur during the troubles...
More than likely though, SHAPE will still end up in Brussels, and there still will be the French split in NATO.

Sorry about Irland, forgott to look on the NATO members, with expansion of NATO I lost the overview...

On HQ Paris and later Brussels were chosen because there distance to East Germany
with West Germany between as Buffer and combatzone
but here is Germany total a Sovjet zone of occupation (SZO)
so Brussel 125 km from SZO OTL 325 km from DDR, while Paris was 620 Km away from DDR
and Paris in this TL 315 km, London is 460 km from SZO

How deal Stalin with Remains of Thrid Reich ?
IMHO He make simerlar change like in OTL:
Move Poland to west, separate Austria from Germany
but still give a Germany in size ot Today, wat is not a Option for Stalin
there two way for him to deal with this:
deportations of milions Germans to east of Soviet Union. so to thin out the population.
partitioning the SOZ in several zones, were inhabitant are restricted to leave.

by the way, the Red Army occupation of Germany & Austria
will cost far more as OTL DDR roughly 4 time more
give this the opportunity that Soviet Union collaps earlier ?
 
A far more interesting scenario in my opinion is still a divided Germany but with the Iron Curtain on the Rhine or even just slightly west of OTL with Franconia, Bavaria and parts of Lower Saxony included in the DDR. A bit like in For all Time.
 
A far more interesting scenario in my opinion is still a divided Germany but with the Iron Curtain on the Rhine or even just slightly west of OTL with Franconia, Bavaria and parts of Lower Saxony included in the DDR. A bit like in For all Time.

So a partitioning of Third Reich in 4 zones ?
  • Austria
  • Bavaria & Baden-Wuerttemberg
  • OTL DDR
  • Lower saxony & Franconia
they all under controll of the "Soviet Military Administration in Germany" = SMAD
The SMAD allowed only four political parties:
  • the Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD)
  • the Communist Party of Germany (KPD)
  • the Liberal-Democratic Party Germany (LDP)
  • the Christian Democratic Union (CDU)
OTL In order of foundation of West Germany, they counter with foundation of DDR
SPD & KPD parties were force to form the Socialist Unity Party of Germany (SED)
while LDP and CDU has to political cooperation with SED as part of the "National Front" in DDR

i wonder if this system survived after Death of Stalin and if Khruschev creates some less autonomous 4 Germany states
If Khruschev get the power.

the Red Army had 8 division with 70000 soviet army personnel in DDR
would be in this TL around 32 division and 2800000 soviet
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Group_of_Soviet_Forces_in_Germany
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soviet_occupation_zone
 
SPD & KPD parties were force to form the Socialist Unity Party of Germany (SED)
while LDP and CDU has to political cooperation with SED as part of the "National Front" in DDR

An addition: ...by 1948 the SMAD had encouraged the establishment of two more parties within the "National Front", the DBD (as a farmer's party) and, interestingly, the NDPD (National-Democratic-Party) in order to attract and integrate former Nazi-followers.

The political impetus was to further divide the "conservative/bourgeouis/liberal"-electorate and ensure SED-dominance.
 
If the Soviets really came as far as the Rhine, I wonder whether they'd stop there, or whether France and Italy with their strong Communist parties could join.

But let's say Stalin doesn't want to risk a) US nukes on Russian cities, or b) a German uprising while the Red Army fights the western allies in France and Italy, and the new border is indeed at the Rhine.

As was said, Stalin would take the opportunity to take any valuable industry to build up Russia. That'd add up to quite a lot, so Russia during the late 40s and 50s would experience a bigger growth, to the horror of anti-Communists in the west. Maybe he'll even feel generous and this DDR will lose a smaller percentage of its industry. (But in the long run, they'll have more older factories later. Seems there's always a drawback.)

The US will prop up a small FRG / BRD under Adenauer in Cologne. (Or Aachen, maybe?) The Saarland may return to Germany earlier. There'll still be many refugees, if the western Allies let them in. Too many for the small Rhineland. Wonder what they'll do... let them immigrate to the US? Or even prop up the colonies with white settlers?!
 
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